A Long History
by Jessa L'Rynn
Summary: Boy meets girl, the eternal tale, as old as time. Before the beginning, the story starts with the answers at the center of the circle. Now Complete.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This story began as part of "When You're Older" and very quickly took on a life of its own. All reviews will be answered. Any questions may be put in reviews or private messages and will be answered. Anything you ever wanted to know about the entire Doctor Who series is supposed to be answered, so please feel free to ask._**

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Chapter 1: Meeting**

The boy sitting in the hotel lobby was beautiful. His face was fair and looked like it had been sculpted by one of those really famous artists she had missed on her last exam. His hair was black and thick and shoulder length and even from across the crowd, you couldn't miss his eyes. They were some sort of brilliant blue. He was thin and almost hawk-like, and he was wearing a grin that absolutely lit up the room, watching everything going on with wild-eyed excitement. Just looking at him made Rose's pulse beat madly.

Up until this point, it had probably been the most boring holiday she had ever been taken on, but now she had something to look forward to if this boy was staying here, too. She didn't even try to stop her feet as they carried her over to his side. However, once she got there, her brain evaporated, and she stood there gaping at him like he had just fallen in from outer space.

"Hello," he said, in a strangely accented voice. "Are you from around here? I seem to be lost."

She summoned up the only two functioning brain cells she could find and answered him. "No, sorry, I'm on holiday. Are you staying here, too?"

"No, like I said, I'm lost." He stood up and leaned in close to her, conspiratorially. "Actually, I'm just pretending to be lost. I'm on a school trip and I ran away. They never let us see anything interesting. It's always just 'See this technology' and 'Ooh, isn't that primitive' and 'Hey, would you look at that, they haven't discovered this, this, or that.' I hate it. But it'll take them days to find me if I'm careful."

"Huh," Rose said, surprised to find how easy it suddenly felt to talk to him. "What school do you go to, then? I thought most of them were on holiday."

"We don't have proper holidays with the Academy," he said sadly.

The Academy sounded like some sort of prestigious institute, so he was probably very, very smart and possibly very rich, too. Maybe she could help him hide if he had the resources. "You could check into a room under someone else's name and they probably wouldn't think to look, as long as you don't use a credit card they know or something."

He grinned again. "Brilliant!" Then he paused. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't even ask your name. That's very rude where I come from."

"S'okay, I shoulda introduced myself when I came over. My name's Rose Tyler," she said and held out her hand for him to shake.

He looked at the hand, seemingly baffled for an instant, then his eyes lit up, and he took it in his, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it like she was a right proper lady or something. "You can call me Thete," he said as he lowered her hand. "It's good to meet you, Lady Rose Tyler."

Rose giggled, she couldn't help herself. He was already picking up her accent a bit, and the way he treated her was just unbelievable. "I'm not a lady or anything like it, honest." She shook her head. "My friends just call me Rose, though."

He looked momentarily confused, then shook his head and the grin was back. "Well, you have the look of a great lady about you, Rose, and I should know, since we're swamped with them back home." His face fell and his eyes grew sad and frustrated. "Lords and Ladies, the lot of them."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, and put her hand on his shoulder to offer sympathy, "that must get very boring."

He took her hand in his and, just like that, it fit perfectly. "Truly," he agreed, his face suddenly an emotionless marble statue.

Rose now felt quite dismissed, but didn't know what to do about it, since her hand was held tightly in his. She wriggled her fingers awkwardly and his eyes snapped to her face. "Oh, I'm sorry. Is this polite here? I'm not allowed at home at all."

Rose studied his face and was unsurprised to see enormous pain there. Her heart, though, did surprise her, by developing a deep ache for the hurt in his eyes. To be forbidden to touch another person, it was unbelievable to her. She was forever hugging her mum and her friends and sometimes even kissing people, sometimes even strangers. "You can hold my hand whenever you want, Thete," she said.

He gave her a long, steady gaze. "I might just take you up on that," he said softly. Then he shook himself. "Is there a computer around here I can get to, do you think?"

"Sure, down the road, there's some kind of internet cafe. That work?"

"Great. Can you go with me, or will your chaperone miss you?"

She snorted. "My 'chaperone'" she said, caustically, "is me mum. An' she's already in the bar with her bloke and whatever he'll pay them to pour."

"Oh," he said, sounding marvelously disappointed. But the grin was back again, a few seconds later and he was heading for the door, with steps elegant and sure. "But that means you can help me, so we can't complain, right? Do you mind?"

"Not a bit," she said, and laughed aloud with sheer happiness.

"That's very pretty," he said. "Do it again."

It didn't matter that his voice came out an arrogant command instead of a request. It was so odd, she laughed again, anyway. Then he laughed along with her, a pleasant, bell-tone noise that suited him perfectly.

"My goodness," he said, "that was fun." He said the oddest things. It made him completely wonderful.

At the Cafe, he went to the computer and began doing such things to it that Rose hadn't even seen her friend Mickey Smith manage, nor any of his friends who had taught him. Whatever he did, though, he didn't tell her or try to explain it, although she distinctly heard him mutter "jiggery pokery".

"Are you going to do computers when you grow up, then?"

He looked at her, and she was surprised to see he looked completely astonished. "How old are you?" he asked.

Insulted, Rose said, "I'm sixteen, thank you. I'm old enough. Why, how old are you?"

He blushed. "A hundred and seventeen," he confessed.

She thumped him on the arm. "Right," she said. "So, seventeen then? Didn't think you were much older'n me, you certainly don't look it."

"Oh. Right." He shook his head. "Yes, seventeen. That hurt," he added, rubbing his shoulder.

"Aw. Want me to kiss it better?" She said this without thinking, then immediately blushed to the roots of her hair as she realized what she'd said.

"I guess. Is that standard procedure here?"

She recovered quickly, since he didn't know. "Nah, just an expression."

"Oh." He looked oddly disappointed, then the computer beeped at him and he turned back to it and threw his arms into the air. "Fantastic," he shouted. "Oooh, I do like the sound of that. Fantastic."

"Shh," she cautioned. "Everyone's looking."

"Oh," he said. "Sorry. Anyway. What name should I use? Thete stands out a bit, you know, and Theta Sigma's even worse."

"Are you Greek then?" she asked, since she knew those were Greek letters from somewhere, though she couldn't remember where.

"No, Gallifreyan."

"Is that like in Denmark or something?"

"Or something," he agreed, drily. "So, name?"

"Just use John Smith. It's a really, really common name, everyone's a Smith, I even have a mate Mickey who's a Smith. 'Sides, people sign in to hotels as John Smith all the time."

"You have a mate? Are you supposed to talk to other males, then?"

"What?" she demanded incredulously, then suddenly realized. "Not mate like husband, mate like friend. Not even like boyfriend or anything. Oh, God, you're not married are you, or betrothed or something? God, I'm so stupid."

He shook his head. "Rose, you're clever, you understand me? Completely brilliant and fantastic and all kinds of other things, so don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise, not even me. There's no betrothed or anything like that for me, so don't worry. Completely free agent." He turned back to the computer and typed in the name she gave him, clicked three buttons and grinned. "Now, we just need to go down to the bank up the road, pick up the traveler's cheques, which are a really great invention, by the way, head back to the hotel and we're set."

"Glad I could help." Then she sat there, and didn't know what to do.

"Let me just get this done," he said, "and then we'll go out to dinner to celebrate, is that a good idea?"

"Really? Like... I mean... you mean it? Me?"

"Sure," he said. "You've been a brilliant helper and I couldn't have done it without you. It'll take them the rest of the week at least to run me down, now, especially if you keep helping me hide. You can make sure I don't stand out. Will you do that? Will you help me?"

She looked deep into his stormy blue eyes and saw something there she knew she'd never understand, trust and light and wonder and some kind of golden star-fire corona of impossible glory. He took her hand and she felt the Earth spinning underneath her feet, spinning but not out of control at all. The world was tumbling through space and he could fly off it at any second, but she could anchor him to it for just a little longer.


	2. Chapter 2

_Humph. Forgot the disclaimer. Therefore:_

_Dalek Disclaimer: Humans who attempt to claim ownership of Doctor Who without authorization will be exterminated._

_Anyway, don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks!!_**

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**Chapter 2: Time Traveling Pay Phone**

"You know what would be really great?" Rose said as they exited the bank and walked down the street hand in hand. She'd just walked past a poster advertising something James Bond (no idea what) and giggled at the thought of her new friend with a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred.

"Humm? What?"

"Travelling," she said. "Seeing the world, seeing everything. I'd love to be some kind of super spy, or something, bouncing around from place to place, saving the world all the time. And nobody'd know my name, I'd pick the right name to call myself and stay on the go."

He looked at her, dumbfounded. "You know something? That's the best idea I have ever heard in my entire life. Why don't you do it, then?"

"Hah," she snorted. "First of all, d'ya know how to become a super spy? 'Cuz I don't. Plus you'd need all sorts of gadgets and people to help you, and a really cool car."

"Oh, yeah," he said. "You'd probably have to steal something really, really valuable. Something to make sneaking in and out easy, like a..." he took a deep breath. "Like a space ship or something."

"What, like a time traveling pay phone like in that movie or something?"

And they both laughed and sauntered hand in hand down the boulevard. They eventually stopped at a small chip shop for lunch and went inside, Rose ordering them fish and chips and two Cokes. They sat at a table and waited for their food and watched two very eccentric looking men, one in a blue suit with pin-stripes and the other a small man with a dark, Beetles hair-cut, wearing a fur coat despite the heat. They were arguing animatedly, waving their arms and gesticulating vigorously, but without a single sound reaching the outside world.

Thete was staring at them unrepentantly, utterly fascinated, while Rose kept trying not to look at them and peeking at them over her soda, anyway. After a moment, they seemed to notice their audience, turned as one to look. The tall man grinned widely, looking remarkably similar to Thete, while the shorter looked positively panicked and jerked the younger by his arm and dragged him out of the shop.

"That was so weird," Thete said. "I mean it, that was just..."

"They were like... I dunno, space aliens or something."

"Yes," said Thete, mischief twinkling in his vivid blue eyes, "I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they were."

"What?" she said. "You believe in aliens?"

"I should think so," he said, suddenly all haughty indignity, "Why, don't you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Never thought about it, tell the truth. I mean what would an alien possibly want with this place?"

He snorted. "There's a hole with no bottom," he said, a figure of speech he had heard in the bank and she'd had to explain. Seemed he had picked it up, now.

"No, seriously," she said. "I mean, we are nice sometimes, but we can be so mean, and we can be so... just... wrong. You know, completely wrong, about so many things." She sighed. "Like the environment, for example. Everyone gets on a kick and recycles everything, but we never stop making stuff you can't recycle anyway."

"Could be worse. Could be the Universe's biggest gang of pack rats, keep everything, never know why."

"Yeah, but that's just it. We keep stupid stuff because something happened there, and then tear down beautiful things because we want to build shops or a hamburger restaurant, or a parking lot or something. I'm sure you've seen it at home. There was this pretty little park when I was a kid. Now most of it's been paved over for a basketball court or something. But the trees and the grass and the LIFE are all gone, and it's s'posed to be progress."

He considered her for a few minutes, really considered her, his stormy eyes staring deep into hers, bringing a blush to her cheeks. No one ever listened to her like Thete did, no one ever seemed to think she was worth that much attention. Even Mickey, who always let her talk when they were together never actually _heard_ what she said to him, not like this.

"Rose Tyler," said Thete, his face curiously close to hers, somehow, "the human race will always have something really, truly wonderful about it, because no matter what, it produced someone like you. You're worth the whole planet, Rose, and everyone on it."

She was spared the embarrassment of trying to come up with an intelligent, or even vaguely cogent response to that by the arrival of their food.

"That was excellent. Terrible for your cardiovascular system, Rose, I promise you, but it was so good."

"I'm glad you liked it," she said with a laugh. "What do you want to do now? Since they don't let you do anything normal?"

"Dunno. What do you like?" His expression was charmingly vacant, and she considered what they must do for entertainment in his part of the world - probably fine concerts and dancing and really posh parties with famous, boring people.

"Well, there's the new _Star Wars_ movie, if you haven't seen it yet. You know what _Star Wars_ is?"

"I'm not daft," he said, though he said it doubtfully, rather than as if anyone had heard of _Star Wars_. "Hum, never mind, maybe I don't know."

"It's Science Fiction. Mostly space cowboys, I guess, and all about this kid who grows up to be one of the biggest bad guys in history. You've heard of Jedis, right?"

"It's Jedi, Rose. One Jedi, thirty-six Jedi, doesn't matter. Yeah, I've heard of them. Sort of master magician-warriors in the lost Republic, why?"

"It's all about them," she said, shrugging.

"Oh, this I have GOT to see," he said and grabbed her hand, bouncing on his toes. "Please, where do we go?"

The movie was an experience Rose Tyler would swear she would never forget for the rest of her life. Thete was more entertaining than the movie itself, which was quite good. There was the whole romance thing with the ex-Queen, that had to be explained, there was the whole Jedi Council thing, then there was Yoda, who Thete insisted had to be the coolest little alien he'd ever heard of. He loved the special effects, he seemed to understand the plot reasonably well for all that he hadn't seen any of the other movies. He insisted that he had to get himself something like R2-D2.

Then, there were the light sabers and he adored those. "It's not that I want to hit people with them," he assured her as they queued up to leave the theater. "Can you imagine me with a sword - I'd get my hand chopped off, probably." He held it up and wiggled it at her, and she laughed at him quite a bit.

"I can see that happening," commented the American guy behind them in the queue. They both ignored him and he wandered off, chuckling.

"No, I just want to have something small I can put in my pocket and use to... I dunno, open doors and such."

"What, like an electric lock pick?"

"Nah, it'd have to be fancier than electric. Like sonic or something."

She giggled in earnest, now. She was feeling very happy, excited, thrilled. He'd held her hand all through the movie, and they were both wired on sugar and caffeine. At least, she was, and she thought he was, because he was talking at an alarming rate. Besides, he was gorgeous, so absolutely radiantly beautiful, and he didn't even know.

"You do that a lot," he said. "Why?"

"What, laughing?" She wasn't about to admit to giggling like a little girl at his antics, not even if he tried to pry it out of her.

"It makes you look even prettier. I wouldn't have thought it was even possible, you're such a beautiful girl anyway."

He said this without any trace of self-consciousness, as if it were a concrete fact, not open for debate in any way. The way he said it rendered her speechless, so she couldn't even try to modestly deny it. And he was looking at her again, the blue eyes going dark and serious, and his face so very close to her own. What would he think, she wondered, if she just leaned in and kissed him?

She shook her head to clear the absurd idea from it before he caught on. They hardly knew each other, not really. They were becoming friends - good friends, close friends, maybe even the best of friends. She couldn't scare him off by...

He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, cutting off her train of thought entirely. His hand went into her hair and her eyes closed as his cool, thin lips moved tentatively, delicately over her own. She tilted her head and brushed his lips with her own, feeling her heart race and longing to pull him close and deepen the kiss.

He pulled back and smiled at her, then tucked his hands into the lapels of his jacket, somehow managing smug and nervous at the very same time. "I... um... well... I mean..." He moved one hand and pushed it through his hair. "I just hope you don't say that was bad."

She grinned at him, shyly, her head tilted down and her tongue poking through her teeth. She shook her head. "No," she told him, when she found her voice, "it was fantastic."

His answering smile could have caught the whole world on fire.


	3. Chapter 3

_Cyber Disclaimer: Doctor Who does not belong to this author. She has emotions. Her emotions should be upgraded._

_Anyway, don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks!!_**

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**Chapter 3: Dinner and a Movie**

"Know what we ought to do?" Rose suggested. "We ought to get the rest of the Star Wars movies on DVD and watch them in your room. We can get some snacks and stuff and just have a night in."

They were just now entering the hotel. Thete tilted his head from side to side, considering. "Is this a normal sort of thing to do?"

"Definitely," she said.

"Good, then, let's..."

"Where have you been, young lady?!"

The voice of Jackie Tyler, slightly slurred but utterly without volume control, made a mad dash through the hotel guests' now ringing skulls, heading straight for Rose's ears, which it had obviously been designed to explode. She was used to it after all this time, so it bounced off harmlessly. Thete, however, was not to know this, because he automatically stepped in front of Rose, his hand on her arm behind his back.

She grinned at his back. "Oi, s'okay, s'just my mum. She's not a ruddy terrorist or anything."

"Rose, I have met Sontaran Warriors less frightening than that person coming over here. We should probably get out of here."

"Nah, just lemme talk to her." She didn't know what a Sontaran Warrior was, but supposed it was probably something Japanese. "Mum. You said you were spending time with Chris. What'd you want me to do, stand in the lobby all day like a lemon?"

Jackie, who had finally made her way over, her enormous boyfriend at her side, took one look at the boy guarding Rose so carefully and grinned at him. "Oooh, you made a friend. I didn't know." She blinked owlishly at the boy, expecting him to say something, like introduce himself, but Thete just stood there, looking vaguely disturbed and quite confused.

"Mum, this is John Smith, he's from Denmark, call him Thete. Thete, this is my mum, Jackie Tyler, and her boyfriend, Chris Waters."

"Pleased to meet you, Thete," Chris boomed, caught the boy's free hand, and shook it in his enormous paw. Thete just stood there, meeting the man's eyes with a doubtful expression on his delicate face. When Chris backed away, Jackie threw herself at him and hugged him tightly.

"Aren't you just the nicest little bloke ever," Jackie said and giggled.

Thete, baffled by this, looked to Rose for help. Rose swiftly but gently disentangled her mum from his neck. "Get off, he's mine," she said playfully.

Jackie laughed. "'Course he is. Still, quite a catch, innee?"

"Yeah," Rose agreed, thoroughly embarrassed under the intensity of Thete's gaze.

The boy seemed to notice her discomfort and suddenly straightened to his full height which, even though he wasn't very tall, put him instantly in charge of the whole situation. His bearing suddenly became regal; he looked very much as if he was raised with nothing but Lords and Ladies every where, and born to rule them all. "Mrs. Tyler, I was just planning to escort your daughter to dinner at the hotel restaurant. Perhaps you'd be interested in joining us with your friend? We can change and meet back here in an hour?"

"Oh, that's too posh, that is," said Jackie, almost startled out of her slightly drunken haze.

Thete smiled. "I'm charging everything to my room," he assured her. "We'd be delighted if you'd join us."

"Oh, Thete, you can't..." Rose began, but he made a quick gesture, so she corrected her slip with, "You have to give me at least an hour and a half."

"Done," he said, and smiled back down at her. Then, he lifted her hand, kissed her knuckles briefly, and turned to the front desk, to fetch the key to his room.

The instant he was gone, Rose felt strangely abandoned, as if the boy was someone she was supposed to be with, and her mum and Chris (who was over their flat almost every night) were the strangers.

"My God, Rose, where'd you find the little prince?" asked Chris, as her mum beamed at her owlishly.

"He's not a prince, he's just at a fancy school s'all. I met him here. We went to the chippy for lunch and went to see the new Star Wars film, that's all." She omitted the rest of it, as it wasn't their business.

"Well, I'm impressed," said Jackie. "He's a right little gentleman. C'mon, you don't have long, have to make sure your dress doesn't have wrinkles or some such."

Rose, surprised that her mum seemed reasonably accepting of her new friend (though that might just have been the offer of a great dinner) was glad enough to go and change. While she was at it, she threw her clothes back into her bag. If Thete didn't mind, she thought she might stay in his room with him, keep him out of trouble, hide from her mum's sex life, that sort of thing.

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When they rejoined him, he had changed his jacket for a nice dress coat and added a collared shirt with a black tie to the ensemble. Rose thought she matched him nicely in her little black and white dress. It was slightly more girlish than she really wanted to wear, and dated, but Thete couldn't know current fashion and besides, it was all she had with her.

"You look beautiful," Thete said, and took her arm. Chris offered Jackie his in the same manner and they followed behind.

"Peach is not your mum's color," he whispered to Rose, his breath curling cooly around her ear and making her shiver. She grinned at him and nodded.

"No kidding, but she won't quit."

"Table for four," he said to the maitre d'.

"Very good, sir," the man said, his nose in the air and his manners that of someone who'd graduated top in his class at Snobs and Butlers College.

Rose grinned at Thete. "Feelin' at home, yet?"

"All the blokes who act like that are usually in the Chancellory Guard," he said, smirking quietly.

Rose, fascinated with how fast he picked up new words and their correct usage, grinned proudly at him and leaned into his shoulder. He put his arm around her as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and hugged her close. "This is very nice," he said, and helped her into the seat the maitre d' was holding out for her.

Jackie was seated across from her, and Chris across from Thete. "You two are just so adorable," Jackie said, hugging herself happily.

Chris, who'd apparently acquired some manners from somewhere, though Rose had never seen them at the flat she shared with her mum in London, flourished Jackie's napkin and set it neatly in her lap. He reached for his own as a hostess came by and filled the water goblets. "So tell me, Thete," he said, "what do you plan to do with your education?"

Thete considered this carefully as he accepted a menu from a friendly looking waiter. "I'll be an... engineer, you'd call it, unless I can find out how one goes about becoming a super-spy." He grinned conspiratorially at Rose, who winked at him boldly and took his hand under the table. She had dealt with her own napkin, though she thought she might let Thete order for them if he knew better what to have at a place like this.

"Good money in Engineering these days," Chris said authoritatively, sounding like a sales man or one of those blokes from Hyde Park. "I'm in insurance, myself. Always money to be had in that."

"That's an important job," Thete said, his eyes again alight with mischief. "Sort of like an undertaker. They know they might need you, but they hope it's not any time soon."

Chris laughed amiably, even though he looked completely confused. Jackie laughed outright, and Rose hid a massive grin behind her napkin. Thete just smirked and considered the menu, then looked at Rose and leaned in close to whisper, "I have no idea what to order."

She grinned and whispered back, "I'm that way with foreign food all the time. You don't do vegetarian, are you allergic to anything?"

"I don't think so. Except aspirin. They told me never to take that, but you won't get that in food."

"Good, then we'll just get the waiter's recommendations and go with them, yeah?"

"Genius," he murmured. "Sheer genius."

Rose was insanely proud of herself for not managing to embarrass herself even once. She had handled the cutlery by remembering Shireen's step mum's advice to start at the outside and work her way in. Everyone else at the table copied her, even Thete, who confided to all that he'd never gotten the hang of it at home, much to his tutor's enormous displeasure. His tutor was apparently some stern old buzzard called Borusa and Thete, far from being the toast of Prydon Academy, was in fact Borusa's constant disappointment.

Her plan for the food also worked perfectly, even if it was incredibly expensive. Still Thete grandly wrote his room number on the bill and signed it carefully. At Rose's prompting, he had included a tip of exactly twenty percent, which he calculated in his head, apparently, to the amazement of all.

They left Jackie and Chris to head back to the bar and went up to Rose's mum's room to collect her things and leave a note to let them know where they'd be. To Rose's utter shock, Jackie buzzed in, without Chris, just as they were getting ready to leave. She looked shockingly sober. 

"Thete, could you wait for us outside for just a minute, I need to have a talk with Rose."

Thete, looking completely confused and surprised, but always polite, did exactly as he was told. Rose, however, from the gravity in her mum's voice and the way Jackie couldn't exactly meet her eyes thought she knew what was coming and hoped, desperately, that the room was sound-proof. Very sound-proof, since there was probably a shouting match in the offing.

Blushing to her very toenails, she sat patiently on the edge of the bed and waited for Jackie to collect her thoughts. "Look, Rose," she said, finally, "I know we've had hard times lately, and I know you and I don't always get along any more. I haven't been a good mum to you some times, and I know I should do better, so I'm going to do it now. You don't want to mess things up with that young man, I'm sure, but you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, either, understand?"

Rose nodded, actually rather surprised this part of the conversation was happening. It wasn't quite what she'd expected.

"Right, good then. I also know you're sixteen and being sixteen you get all sorts of ideas and... well... hormones and feelings and... damn." She sighed. "Look, we talked about this before, but it's serious now, what with you staying in the room with him. I trust him, yeah, I dunno why, but he's a right proper little gentleman, so it might not come up. Still, he's a kid himself, and a boy besides so I bet it will."

Rose gaped at her.

"Look, just..." Jackie turned abruptly and made her way over to the night stand, where she pulled out several small packages and handed them to Rose. "Just. If you do, please use protection, alright?"

Rose nodded stupidly, pocketed the condoms without saying a word, and wobbled to the door, pale faced and shocked. That had sort of been the conversation she'd been expecting. Sort of. She stopped with her hand on the door handle and turned back to her mother. "I love you," she said.

Jackie beamed at her and nodded. "I love you, too, Sweetheart. Please, just... please. Be careful."

Rose stepped out into the corridor and found Thete waiting for her. "Are you all right?" he asked immediately. "You look... upset, I guess."

Rose shook her head and pushed her hair back off her face. "I just had my comfortable view of the world turned on its side, is all. What do you say we go get those movies?"


	4. Chapter 4

Two Disclaimer: Oh my giddy Aunt! You can't own Doctor Who! Only the TARDIS owns Doctor Who. Oh, I don't think I should've said that. Oh dear!

_Anyway, don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks!!_

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**Chapter 4: Handling the Truth**

The movies were available from the front desk, surprisingly enough, although Rose supposed it was a holiday place and sometimes people had to have things to do, like on rainy days and stuff. Rose popped in Star Wars itself, the first great movie, and the very first thing Thete noted was that Sir Alec Guinness was not Ewan McGregor. So that left Rose to explain that these movies supposedly happened in the future from the one they had seen and that they were made years and years before it. Different kinds of special effects, a rather different world, really, and the bad guy in this one had been the protagonist in the last one.

She paused the movie on the Tatooine sunset scene. "It's like this. Anakin, the kid we saw yesterday, is going to become the dark villain bloke, Darth Vader. Because he's wrong, about everything. He's got it wrong about love, and he doesn't understand about freedom, and no one can ever tell him he's wrong, because he's selfish and self-centered and really, really angry at everything. Remember yesterday when everyone jumped when he was telling her about killing all those sand people? That was because they played Darth Vader's music while he was telling her."

"A leitmotif. Something regular fans would recognize and find decidedly sinister, while it just sounded interesting to me. I have to remember that tune - Koschei would love it, I swear he would."

"Who's Koschei, one of your mates?"

"Yes, he and Zedric are my best friends, really. We've sort of grown up together. Koschei would adore those movies, all the cosmic angst and a fascinating villain and a whole bunch of completely deluded people." He looked back at the screen. "I have to tell you, though, whoever did this bit has got to have seen it for real."

"What? Tatooine?"

"I don't think there really is a Tatooine, I'd have to look it up. But they must have seen a double sunset somewhere, because you just can't get those right by accident. Either that or they have a really, really good imagination."

"You're having me on," she said, and laughed, and unpaused the DVD, and they watched Luke watch the sky.

Thete watched the rest of the film in curious silence, and once the credits rolled, he turned to her with a very serious expression. "I have to tell you something, Rose, and I don't know if you're going to like me anymore once I've finished."

"What is it, Thete? You can tell me anything, you know. We're friends. We're always going to be friends, I just know it." She frowned, not at all worried for some reason, but quite tense and suddenly a little suspicious. "You're not some sort of psycho, are you, because I'll kick your skinny arse if you are."

He laughed, and his laughter cut the tension in the room completely. "No, I'm not psychotic," he promised. "But I don't know if you'll believe that. Look, just let me think a minute." He ran his hand through his hair, then stood up, turned off the tele, and turned on the radio. Then he walked around the room, listening to the music, fidgeting, while Rose put up the DVD and watched him walk.

It was late night radio and they were playing some old jazz tune. She began to hum along for a moment, then stood up and put her hands on his shoulders to stop his nervous pacing. "Look. You're going to wear a hole in the carpet. Do you dance?"

"No," he said, so definitively it would have stopped the sun in the sky had it been directed there.

"Yeah, you do. C'mon, I'll show you." So she did. She drew close to him and put his hands in the right places and began a slow, comfortable waltz-like dance with him. There wasn't much room in the little sitting room of the suite, and she had to modify the steps she knew so that she could lead instead of him. But he caught on quick and it was really amazing in such a very short amount of time.

Then, as the third song they had danced to came to an end, he looked down at her with a relaxed smile, one she would have said was quite tender. "Do you feel it?" he asked. "The world turning under our feet?"

She leaned in close to him, inhaling his strange, enticing fragrance, and nodded. "Only with you," she confessed softly.

He nodded. "Don't you want to know why?"

"'Cuz you're wonderful, Theta Sigma."

He chuckled softly. "Not really, but I'm glad you think so." He sighed. "Just promise me you won't scream, or run off and alert the media or something."

"OK, whatever makes you happy."

He took her hands in his and laid them flat on his chest. She, not sure what to think, stood there, confused. Then, she felt it, the throbbing of his heartbeat underneath both hands. It took her a few minutes to register what that might mean. Then, it did and she looked up at him in undisguised wonder. "Do you have..."

"Two hearts," he finished for her. "Yes, I do."

"Oh, but... how?" Her mind was refusing to tell her what it meant, even though she knew it would have been able to do, under normal circumstances. As if anything about this was even remotely normal.

"It's natural for my people. Gallifrey isn't in Demark, Rose, it's actually rather farther away, by about 250 million light years, in the Constellation of Kasterborous."

"You're an alien," she breathed, and her voice sounded hollow in her own ears. He nodded, and stepped back from her, the look on his face lost and hopeful at once.

She grinned at him, wildly. "You're an alien!" she exclaimed, and hugged him tightly. He returned her hug, lifting her off her feet, laughing.

"This isn't anything like what they told me would happen," he said a minute or two later when they'd calmed down a bit. "They always said that being an alien would get you in trouble on most of these primitive worlds."

"Sorry," she apologized cheekily, "we're fresh out of peasants with torches. S'pose I could get you some black ops and a field dissection threat, but why don't we keep it to ourselves, instead."

"I like the way you think," he said. "They kept saying, 'Humans are primitive, they don't think things out, they're still ruled by biology and instinct, mostly.'"

"First of all, whoever these 'they' people are, I'm gonna give them such a smack if I ever catch them. Second, you kissed me, so don't go telling me 'bout biology, yeah?"

"You were thinking about it," he confessed. "I was curious."

She frowned. Him being an alien was one thing. Him being an alien who could read minds... "Hey, that's not on, Thete."

"What?"

"You can't go digging around in other people's skulls, it isn't fair." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, stern and unmoving on this point.

He blinked in surprise, his face now both startled and chagrinned. "I didn't mean to, I swear it. Rose, I'd never hurt you, do you believe me?"

She considered him, how sincere his face shone, how kind he was, how beautiful he looked, how much she trusted him. He was so easy to read, she couldn't help but know that his apology was heart-felt and his concern genuine. "Yeah, all right," she agreed grudgingly.

"It just popped in there. You're easy to read, in a way, and harder than anyone, too. Tough to explain, but let me try. There's something very special about you, called time traces, they're all wreathed around you. That makes you hard to read, hard to find, hard to anything. But you're still a human, so your mind is open, so when you're close to me, I can catch things you think really strongly. Or things you try not to think about really strongly."

"So you didn't want to kiss me?" was all she took away from that lecture, except his vague assessment that she was special.

He snorted. "Not only did I want to kiss you, but I want to kiss you again. I think I'd like to kiss you a lot, if I'm honest. Maybe even whenever I can get away with it."

"Go on, then," she invited, breathlessly.

So he leaned in close and gave her a small, chaste kiss on her lips. As he pulled back, she grinned at him. "Tell you what, Thete, that's not really a proper kiss."

"Define proper. Certainly, it's not totally inappropriate in public. I've seen senior Time Lords trade kisses like that some times with their partners."

"I guess then," she teased, "that I mean 'improper.'" And she pulled him close and their lips met again. She gave him a second to adjust, then opened her mouth a little, allowing her tongue to trace the soft line of his thin lips. They parted for her and he tentatively brushed her tongue with his own. His hands shot into her hair, and she tilted her head to meet them, and she was lost.

They tasted each other's mouths thoroughly, learning, exploring, delighting in the experience. He made a soft moan and his hands moved down to her shoulders, then down her back, resting there in the curve just above her bottom. She threaded one hand through the curls at the back of his neck, and the other sought to trace up and down his spine.

When they broke the kiss, a second was irresistible, and then a third. Rose felt as if her lips were practically bruised and she could feel him breathing heavily where she leaned into him, her head on his shoulder, listening to one heart beneath her ear, enjoying the echoing throb beneath her hand.

"You are wonderful," he said softly. "I can't tell you... I'm so alone, like you wouldn't believe, and I meet a person who wants me to touch her, lets me stay close to her. I was starting to think I'd never meet anyone who made sense to me again, and here you are." He chuckled. "An alien."

"Is there anything I should know about?" she asked, wondering if there were reasons why these poor people never touched each other. "Anything I should tell you?"

He frowned, nervousness and curiosity plain in his tilted head and his pursed lips. "I couldn't say. We should be... but Rose, I mean..."

She smiled tenderly, and brushed her hair out of her face. "S'okay, I was just curious. I don't have to find out right this minute."

He grinned. "I'm nervous. I guess you should know about that. And I really am one hundred and seventeen, but we obviously mature much more slowly than you do, because..." He tilted his head to the side, watching her carefully. "We just feel right, you know?"

She nodded. "Definitely. You know what, though? I think we should sit down, try to watch the second movie. Maybe get in our jim-jams, more comfortable."

He agreed to that plan easily enough. "I'm going to need to buy more clothes or something tomorrow," he told her as he reentered the room in a t-shirt and shorts. "I only had time to grab an overnight bag. The capsule liked me, though, so I have all the right clothes. Funny, isn't it?"

"What, the capsule liking you? Nah, that's just you. Is the capsule your ship or whatever, like the _Millennium Falcon_?"

"It's a Time And Relative Dimensions In Space vehicle. We call them capsules, but they're more than that, a lot more. This one is an old Type-40 TT, and the chameleon circuit went on the fritz as soon as we landed here, so Borusa was too distracted to notice me leaving. He's got to fix it with just Lady Thalia and my classmates. There's Koschei, Ushas, Drax, and Zedric. They're the only ones who've really even seen a capsule in operation before. Also, there's half a dozen others, and me, but I've scarpered."

"What'll they do when you get back?"

"Well, if Zedric's House gets wind of it, Borusa will get in trouble, so I should be safe enough. He'll probably make me organize his library. I'll only be at that a decade or so, nothing to worry about."

She nodded, bit her lip over her suggestion that he not go back, then, and turned on the next movie.


	5. Chapter 5

Three Disclaimer: Even if you can reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, you will not own Doctor Who and neither will this ridiculous writing creature.

_Don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks!!

* * *

_**Chapter 5: Seeing Deep**

The morning light filtered through the curtains and fell across her face, annoying her enough that she jerked awake to glare at it. She sat up in bed, confused for a moment as to where she was and how she got there, then looked around until her eyes fell on the still, delicate face of her new... well, friend wasn't close enough to cover how much he'd come to mean to her in such a very short time, but it would have to do. She felt, oddly, as if years had passed just yesterday and she was as close to him as she would have been knowing someone else half her life.

He was sitting in repose in the chair next to the bed, a magazine open on his lap and his eyes closed. She was surprised to find he looked older in sleep, much older, an ancient sculpted statue, a thing of impossible beauty that was so much more than skin deep. She had thought yesterday that it was just the eyes that did it, but his whole face, his very being conveyed a sense of vast power and enormous potential. As she watched, breathless and unsure, his face seemed to shift briefly in the flickering sunlight, so many faces, so much perfect, endless, passing time.

Somewhere between his closed lids and his cascading hair, he looked so very alien and yet so utterly, inarguably real. She didn't have words for the description she was trying to think of for him. He looked so utterly inhuman, and yet, by her old definition, somehow the most human being she had ever lain eyes upon.

"How did you do that?" he whispered, not even opening his eyes.

"Sorry, what?"

"You just saw me," he said, his voice putting such a weight on the word "saw" that it implied utter completeness, a full seeing that went far beyond just what her eyes were telling her. He opened his eyes, then, and looked at her, and they shone like star fire in the early morning light. "What are you?" he asked.

"Rose Tyler," she replied, and there was a promise in her words, that she would always be Rose Tyler, whatever she would be in the future.

"I was born on the Shining World of the Seven Systems. I've looked into the temporal Schism and seen eternity. I've seen the beginnings of life and the ending of worlds and so many extraordinary things in between. Never, in all that, in my entire life, have I ever seen anything like you, Rose Tyler. My people call themselves Time Lords, and realities bend to our will. But no matter what reality looks like at the last, it will never look as amazing as it does right now, looking at it with you in it."

And, as though the moments had scattered all crazed in his wake, he was at her side in an instant, and leaning over to kiss her. There was such a longing in the kiss, a loneliness that was young but indescribable. It was full of slow burning passion, in her very human desire, and his eternal separation from such simple comforts as a fond embrace.

She helped him lower himself to the bed beside her, and when her hands went under his shirt, he didn't stop her or pull away or even tense more than to lean into the tender contact. She was on fire, the need to share this, with him, burning her from the very center of her soul.

The knock at the door was quite the last thing she expected, even though she realized she should have seen it coming. "Sod's Law," she told Thete and rose to check the door.

Thete hung back, whether to hide or because he needed a minute, she didn't know, but she opened the door to find a tall, broad shouldered, blond haired young man with a neat mustache and piercing golden eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said.

Behind her, Rose heard a quiet kerfuffle and hoped the stranger at the door hadn't noticed. "Can I help you?" she asked in a faked posh accent, striving to keep her expression as vacant eyed, suggestive, and stereotypical as she could. "My... husband's out at the moment if you're a friend of his, Mister...?"

"Arpel," said the young man. "No, sorry, I'm afraid I've gotten the wrong room entirely. I do apologize, erm... Madame." He turned away, his shoulders slumped, and moved on down the corridor, obviously heading back downstairs.

She nodded and closed the door behind him, then turned just in time to see Thete vaulting the sofa as he raced toward the door. He did up the dead bolt and the chain latch with quick, nimble fingers. Then, he turned to her and she saw the look in his eyes for only a split second before he swept her up in a fierce hug. It looked something remarkably like love.

"That was Zedric," he said when at last he set her on her feet. "House Arpel. Most powerful House on Gallifrey, his one, heirs of Rassilon and all that."

"What was he doing here, though?"

"I assume they found me."

"Yeah," she agreed, "but the thing is, right, if your tutor found you, he wouldn't send one of your mates up to nab you, would he? He'd come up himself and bring everyone with him to drag you back by your ear like my mum in a strop. Embarrass you in front of everyone and stuff."

His eyes widened, then his cheeks flushed pink with excitement, and he shouted with glee. "Ha ha! That's so right, though. So now Borusa's got double trouble on his hands." He actually sang something in some language she couldn't understand and fluttered around her a bit, then caught her and twirled her around. "Rho's always been mad about this planet - I mean barking, out of his tree, mad about it. I bet he snuck off same time I did. Shame it's raining."

She was giggling and grinning and he was so beautiful in his excitement and delight. She wanted to sing with him, she wanted to dance. But she couldn't follow his train of thought, no matter how she tried. "Wait, what, why?"

"'Cuz then, I could go down and sneak up on him and throw him in the bath. Oh well." He stood there with his hands on his chest, looking smug, rocking back on his heels.

She grinned. "I didn't realize it was raining. Shame, guess we'll have to stay in today."

He looked down at her, and all the glee wiped off his face. "Actually, we probably should. Don't want Zedric to find me, in case he wasn't as careful."

"Good point. So I vote we watch the rest of the movies, maybe order some breakfast."

"Sounds like a plan." He beamed as he pulled her back toward the sofa. "Any chance of a banana? I like bananas."

* * *

The last of the original movies had included a lot of incessant debate about everything from how Luke had become such a powerful Jedi in a couple of months (Rose figured he didn't know he couldn't, so he did, while Thete thought he always was) to why a desert slug would want to sex up a human (or humanoid, as Thete insisted). They laughed a lot, especially at the Ewoks, and cheered a lot, especially when Vader threw the Emperor into the pit. 

Thete told her that the funeral scene reminded him of those very rare Gallifreyan funerals he had seen - they always burned their dead, too. "Maybe they're your ancestors or some such," she teased. "Do you feel the Force?"

"No," he replied, quite serious. "Time itself is all around me - I can see it moving. To your kind, it only goes in one direction, though I doubt it always will where you're concerned, but for me, it's like water. I can catch it in my hand, hold it, change it like the course of a river. See what could happen if I do."

"You can see the future?" she asked, awed. "What's going to happen to me?"

"I see possibilities. Things that could be, not things that necessarily are. But maybe that's what attracts me to you. I can't exactly see your future. It's so full of possibilities. I've seen Time Lords of enormous significance who have fewer time traces wrapped round them than you do. It's funny, you're supposed to be an ordinary human being, but where Time's concerned, you're quite the most unordinary person I've ever heard of. I wish I could show you."

"I wish I could see it. 'Cuz, where I'm sitting, that's you, not me."

He snorted. "I'm nobody, Rose. Literally nobody. I've not even got a name of my own. The one I go by? It's a number."

"You're never ever going to be nobody to me. I can promise you that even if you walk out the door and I never see you again."

"You won't escape me that easy," he said with a laugh. Then he pulled her close and tucked her head under his chin.

* * *

When the last movie was over, the rain had stopped, so they left the room and went to find Jackie. She was in the lobby with Chris and they were discussing whether to go down the pub or back to the bar. Rose thought they'd probably only just got up. 

"How was your evening?" Jackie asked with a cheeky wink. Rose surmised that she'd already been drinking.

"Just stayed in, watched some movies," Rose told her, remembering that her mother didn't know all the amazing things she had discovered since dinner last night. To Rose, the whole world was a completely new and different place today, to Jackie, just another damn day.

"We're going shopping," she added. "Thete needs some new things."

"Have fun, then, Sweetheart," Jackie commanded and sent them on their way with a friendly wave.

"Why is your mother using mind-altering substances?"

"Just alcohol, s'far as I know, though I s'pose she might take Valium, too." Rose sighed. "She goes through cycles, you know. Normal as can be for almost two months at a time, and then something happens and she takes to the bottle again. She's depressed is all, I guess."

"There are treatments for depression, even on this planet. Proper treatments that don't involve self-medicating herself into liver damage."

"I know. But then, she'd have to admit she's got a problem. And as long as she doesn't give people bad hair cuts and as long as everyone treats her like the life of the party, she doesn't think it's a problem. My dad died when I was a baby, see. All alone. He was hit by a car. And everything's been so hard for us for such a long time, she doesn't think."

"Doesn't think what?"

"No, I meant that. Doesn't think. Not at all, doesn't want to. She loved him, see, he was a good, maybe great man, and she... I guess she misses him."

"The life she thinks they were supposed to have."

"Yeah. Exactly. You know, for an alien, you really understand humans. Maybe you should be a shrink, come to Earth, set up a practice."

He laughed and led her into a store.


	6. Chapter 6

Four Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure what all this is about, but there's one thing I can tell you for absolutely certain. You cannot invent perpetual motion by strapping buttered toast to the back of a cat and hurling it out a window. Neither will this make you the owner of Doctor Who. Jelly baby?

_Don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks for the questions received so far. They have been noted and will be answered._

* * *

**Chapter 6: Inhuman Conversations**

They came back laden with bags and arguing. It was stupid, Rose knew it, but it felt so normal. "You have to have different shoes, Thete, you can't just wear the first pair that feels comfortable."

"But I liked them," he said.

"You liked the ones with the spats, too, but no way are you wearing them in public. No way."

"I will if I like," he replied firmly. "And vulgarly colored clothes, too, if I want."

"You'll stand out like a Christmas tree on Easter Sunday. Yes, that is bad. Thought the idea was to hide, yeah?"

"Oh," he said, looking quite chastened. "Right."

Now she felt like she'd just kicked a blue-eyed puppy. "Look. If you're ever in a situation where you want to make a scene, you'll know what to wear."

He shook his head. "Yep, I'll just pull it out of the cupboard, say to myself 'Hum, Rose will hate this' and wear it."

"Exactly," she said, and took his hand in hers and they smiled as they went into their room together.

* * *

There was a message waiting for them, from Chris, inviting them to dinner in town, his treat this time, so Rose called down to find out where they were going. It turned out to be just a regular sort of place with steak and chips and such, so they dressed very casually for the evening out. 

It would have been completely boring, except that Rose thought her mum was looking peaky. She asked about it, but the woman just smiled nervously. Chris took Jackie's hand and she smiled at him. For some reason, Rose thought she looked a bit wary at that.

Thete, she noticed, watched this whole exchange with narrowed, burning eyes. She wondered if he could read them and, if so, what he saw. He started talking to Chris, then, monopolizing the whole conversation, perhaps, or possibly trying to learn what she wanted to know.

Somehow, Rose wasn't feeling too bad about the mind reading thing anymore.

Yet, dinner passed without incident - except the one time Chris reached out after something on the table and brushed her hand. He tried for a cheerful, apologetic smile, but brushed it again when he withdrew his hand.

Rose looked up at Thete uncertainly. His eyes were sharp and considering, but he said nothing. As soon as they walked out of the restaurant, waiting with Chris for Jackie to come from the loo, the Time Lord pulled her into an embrace that smoldered and laid a kiss on her lips that felt like icy fire.

For some reason, she felt marked by that kiss. She smiled and curled up against the lean, elegant body of her companion, safe and comfortable in the circle of his arms.

"Think you should come back with us tonight," said Chris to Rose.

"No thanks," said Rose.

Her mum arrived just then, giggling and flirtatious and led Chris away with some whispers in his ear that made the man sweat. Rose rolled her eyes and waited until they were out of ear-shot. "He gives me the creeps," she told Thete quietly.

"I don't like him," Thete agreed, watching their retreating backs. If he'd been Superman instead of a Time Lord, Chris probably would have been zapped on the spot.

* * *

That evening, they watched Casablanca on the tele. Thete was completely taken with the story. 

"It's so beautiful," he said.

"You're beautiful," she replied, still a little dreamy eyed from the sadly romantic ending.

"Thanks," he said, and blushed. "What about that song, then?"

She sighed, turned off the tele and, feeling very self-conscious, sang it through in its entirety for him. She'd learned it in choir last year, before she got suspended for encouraging them to go on strike.

"That's perfect," he mused. "You've a beautiful voice."

"Not as good as yours," she said.

"When'd you hear me sing?" he asked, surprised.

"This morning when you were in the shower. It was so pretty, even if I didn't know what it was about."

"It's a legend. You have songs like that, don't you, that tell stories?"

"Sure. All kinds."

"Well, this one is about a girl whose partner went to war and sent her away. She went to his mother, a powerful goddess, and offered to sacrifice herself for him. So the goddess joined with her and she changed into a firebird and burned his enemies and destroyed them and rescued him. But she had to die because she'd changed. Only he recognized her and kissed her. His kiss changed her by taking the change on himself, but he burned in her stead. Then, she wept for him, and he rose alive in a new form from the ashes." He shook his head and shrugged. "Old legend, like your myths."

"I like it."

"Me too." He frowned. "It's not the sort of thing most Gallifreyans would do anymore, though."

"I'd do it. For someone I loved."

"You'd do it for any good reason. You're a good person."

"Thete, I have to tell you I don't know that's true. I argue with my mum and I don't get on with Mickey half the time even when I'm s'posed to, and I hate Chris even though he hasn't done anything. I'm always restless and sometimes I'm really stupid."

"I don't buy that last one for a minute. You can't help but be restless, because you were born for adventure. Chris bothers me, too, and I'm sorry about your mum and Mickey. But none of those things make you bad."

"How about what I'm thinking about you right now?" She blushed, but couldn't let him mistake her for the sort of innocent, selfless angel he was describing. "You're an alien and you probably don't even do these sorts of things and I bet if you read my mind, you'd be shocked or maybe even disgusted. I keep imagining all sorts of things and I can't help it."

"What, sexual things?" he asked and, though he blushed, he obviously felt like he had to pursue the line of questioning to its end, because he didn't let it go when she bowed her head and stared at her hands, nodding and feeling completely ashamed.

"Well, it's complicated. We don't have the same kind of libido you humans do. That's probably just because we're a very long lived race and sexual desire is meant to compel procreation. We don't even procreate that way anymore, really. Our science has advanced beyond it. But we do sometimes enjoy each others bodies - or the adults do. It's not that I wouldn't." She looked up at him and saw he was smiling at her, even though he seemed a little shame-faced and was trying to hide it in the lecture. "It's not even that I can't, if you couldn't tell this morning. I'm just not supposed to, because my disciplines are in their late formative stages."

She reached out and took his hand. "Is that why you couldn't help reading my mind?"

"Yes," he admitted. "That, and it's very attractive, your mind, all full of intricacies and daft human notions and brilliant things and so much emotion. Even an older Time Lord would have trouble resisting you, I'm sure of it, maybe even more than I do, some of them. It's the intricacy I can't get over. All our records of your kind say you're supposed to be simple and illogical and brim full of biological imperatives."

"Well, you got the biological imperatives right, anyway," she admitted ruefully.

He laughed and pulled her to him. Then his mouth was on hers, and his kiss was so tender, so giving. She felt cherished, like he was trying to learn her, study her, to find the best ways to kiss her so he could always kiss her breathless.

He raised his head and smiled at her, giving her serious consideration, as though weighing whether he could say more. "Part of it," he explained, speaking slowly as if choosing his words with great care, "is that. Another part of it is a serious as a linguistic difference. You're clever, Rose, so you should understand this, though it's going to sound odd. Bear with me if I say something rude, because I'm not trying to be insulting, I promise."

"It's ok," she said with a tender, whimsical little smile. "We're talking about sex like mature adults. This conversation's already gone way off normal."

"It really is like a language difference. You speak with your bodies as much as with your words, sometimes more because your bodies always speak the truth while your minds can lie to others and to yourselves. Our language is more precise. We have words for every single possible shade of meaning for everything, and we have them in four dimensions. You only have one language on this planet that comes close, and that's music, and most of you don't speak it or understand it with any kind of fluency."

"I don't."

"Not yet," he said, smugly. She didn't know what to make of that, so gestured him to continue. He ran a hand through his hair and then, slowly, did as she asked. "You use your bodies to convey those things you don't have words for, and you use sexuality to convey many of those things. But it's a human language that my people don't need because we can define every single thought, emotion, or concept with a few well-chosen words. Your way is more exact, but it relies heavily on mutual comprehension."

"I don't ever want it to mean anything but what it is," she said, trying to explain to him that neither she nor her body would lie to him.

He nodded. "That's intimacy and sharing and emotional connection, by your definition." He spoke a few soft, chiming words. "And those are the words that define it at it's most basic - separate-together-one-now-ness, if you will."

She shook her head. His intellect and his whole concept of the world was so far beyond hers. She had to rely on her emotions and, if he was willing to accept that, then this would definitely be a beautiful friendship - but probably never anything else. "We're ok, though?"

He pulled her into another blinding, searing kiss. "I would enjoy sharing with you," he said as he pulled away. "I just don't want to hurt you."

She blinked at him, feeling like she'd been kissed completely cross-eyed. "What would happen?" she asked, not because she was planning to go against his wishes and seduce him anyway, but because she was starting to suspect that it might happen, in time, if he stayed around her. His curiosity, if nothing else, was going to get them both into the most exquisite trouble.

"Would you believe that the human race is the single most universally compatible species ever?"

"What's that when it's home?" she asked, feeling a strange sort of joy bubbling up inside her. It was really sort of fun to be talking about sex without anyone drinking or making crude jokes or anything. It felt good to have an intelligent conversation about something that people her age only discussed in hushed whispers and rude teasing.

"It means you can carry or sire, usually depending on gender, the off-spring of just about any sentient life form. Something in your physiology on a sub-atomic level, no one's ever been able to pin it down exactly. What has always boggled my mind is that you all seem to know it."

"Know what?"

"That you can cross-breed, for want of a better term. I saw that show on tele, with the logical bloke with the ears. One of my professors showed it to us as an example of inherent racial knowledge."

"What, Mr. Spock?" she asked, incredulously.

"Yes, him. He's supposed to be half-human, but his blood is green, for Rassilon's sake. But my point is, most Time Lords are generally sterile, but if it's at all possible, I could impregnate you, I'm pretty sure, and I couldn't stop it."

"What, you can stop that sort of thing with your mind?"

"S'posed to be able to do. We're taught very early to turn off the desires." He rolled his eyes and tugged at her hair humorously. "Thanks for ruining that, by the way."

"You're welcome," she replied cheekily, and smirked at him, her tongue poking between her teeth. "What else?" she added after a quiet moment or two while they just looked at each other. "'Cuz, for the record, I have something that can handle that problem if it comes up."

"Was that a pun?" he demanded, and sounded like he was trying to feign complete outrage. His lips were twitching madly while he tried to give her a superior glower.

"Not on purpose," she defended while he moved to tickle her and she laughed and writhed helplessly. "Honest, Thete, it wasn't on purpose!"

He smiled. "It better not have been," he said with mock sternness and she rolled her eyes at him. "The only other thing I can think of is that I'd probably not be able to not link our minds."

"Double negative," she said. "We studied those in school right before hols. They're bad form, 'specially in super intelligent aliens."

He rubbed his hand down his face. "At this point, I want you to know, that Koschei would want to buy you a present. He's always trying to catch me out with languages."

"Why?"

"Because that's my thing. I hardly ever need the capsule to translate for me, I learn languages faster than anyone else on Gallifrey. I learned English years ago, and am learning the idiom from you."

"You're changing the subject, also."

"Good point," he said. "I'm clever like that."

"But you were obviously out the day they were giving out humble."

"Humility, or modesty," he corrected mildly, "would be the right words."

"Thanks for that," she replied sarcastically.

"Don't mention it," he said, and his hands went to the lapels of his coat again.

She shook her head at him. "I'm tired. Let's go to bed."

He blinked at her, astonished. "But..."

"Just to sleep," she cried, defending herself while her face turned violently red.

"Oh," he replied, blushing himself. "Well, we don't really sleep as much as you do, but I could definitely do with a rest for a bit."


	7. Chapter 7

Seven Disclaimer: This is the Doctor, Lord President Elect of the High Coucil of Time Lords, Protector of Gallifrey, and Defender of the Laws of Time. I call upon you to admit that you don't own Doctor Who and return to your customary place in Time and Space.

_Having computer trouble. Never buy a Symantec product - they do not work._

_**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. The first set will run through the end of March. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**_

_Don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks for the questions received so far. They have been noted and will be answered._

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 7: Sod's Law Strikes Again**

"S'funny," Rose said, curled comfortably at Thete's side.

He was sitting up in the bed, making some sort of notes on a sheet of hotel stationery. "What is?" he asked, and reached out to cup her face in his free hand. "Good morning."

"Morning," she agreed, but looking through the curtains from her cozy position revealed it to be nothing of the kind. "This is funny. What we talked about last night, and honesty, and lying here, with you, now. If you were any other bloke, you'd be trying to get in my knickers."

"I'd look ridiculous in your knickers," he replied, dryly.

Rose giggled. "That's an expression, Thete. It's s'posed to be 'get me out of my knickers' technically."

He grinned. "I'll have to remember that one." Then, he frowned. "Do you want me to get you out of your knickers?"

She laughed fondly and wrapped an arm around his waist. "I'm just saying. S'like, I'm happy. We can or not... I dunno. S'why I said it was funny." She knew what she meant. She knew she found him sexy, and she hoped he felt the same, but she also appreciated that he liked and respected her and wanted to be with her without the whole relationship being about nothing but sex, as so many relationships at their (relative) ages were. "S'like, we're friends and better'n friends and..." She yawned. "God, I'm tired."

He chuckled slightly and set his paper down. "Your accent's thick as tri-silicate steel glass, too. I think you might try getting a bit more sleep."

She looked at his paper and saw it was covered in odd spirals and layer upon layer of shading. In the center of the maelstrom was her face, looking so very strange. It was obviously her, and yet it looked so beautiful, it couldn't possibly be her. "This is... wow," she breathed.

He sighed. "I can't get it right, I need colors and a two dimensional picture just doesn't convey something like this."

"S'okay," she said. "I couldn't show you what I saw yesterday even if I was DaVinci."

"Ah, DaVinci," he said, and cradled her head on his chest. "There was a human genius born, oh, ages out of his time." His hand caressed her hair and his voice was soft and steady. His double hearts thrummed reassuringly beneath her ear.

* * *

Rose wasn't even aware of falling asleep again as he talked with quiet excitement about how he'd like to meet DaVinci and what it would be like to talk to a man so brilliant as that. 

When he woke Rose again, it was with kisses, not on her lips but along her jaw and down to her exposed throat. She drifted from sleeping to waking with the curling of his tongue along her pulse point, the cool rush of his breath over her neck. She moaned aloud as she realized the pleasure coursing through her was so very real.

"Morning," Thete whispered, and his voice was soft and rich like velvet over her skin.

"Morning," she replied, realizing from the light falling across the bed that it was morning, this time. She threaded her fingers through his hair, trying to pull him in for a kiss. He backed away a bit and shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he did look a little penitent, along with a lot mischievous. "You looked so lovely lying there, just like you needed to be woken up."

She flicked open the top button of his night shirt. "One usually does that," she said softly, "by shaking or calling. One does not wake a sleeping companion with kisses, unless one expects to be kissed back."

"Oh," he said, and his eyes danced at her as she opened another couple of buttons. "But wasn't it more effective?"

"Oh, very effective. If you wanted me to wake up with the urge to..." she opened the last few buttons and ran her hands up his fair bare chest. "Well, to do this."

And she leaned over and traced her tongue up the line of his sternum, tasting the salt of his skin and finding the strange, otherworldly flavor to be nearly irresistable.

He breathed something, a swear word or a prayer, and reached out a hand for her to steady himself and to draw her closer. His hand slipped beneath her t-shirt without even the slightest caution, and drew delicate circles up the length of her spine.

"Sod's law," she murmured, "means that any moment your tutor will arrive with restraints." Then she kissed along his throat, trembling as his cool fingers laid a path of shivers all the way up to her shoulders and down to her waist.

"Or your mum, with a team of alien catchers," he added. His hands moved now up her stomach, making their delicate, lingering way toward her breasts. The anticipation was making her shake.

"Let's ignore it," Rose said.

"Definitely," Thete replied.

Their lips crashed together in that single, breathless decision, tongues twined together, speaking eloquence without words. Passion burned - she ached for him, hurt bone deep with pain his touch and only his could soothe. She wanted him more than she wanted ...

The fire alarm shrieking from the walls was much more effective than the knock at the door. "What is that?" Thete demanded over the noise.

"Fire alarm," Rose said, and then started looking for her shoes, cursing fluently. "Get some shoes, button your shirt, we're supposed to leave."

"Right. Tell you, that Sod's Law of yours is more effective than I thought. Is it a prophylactic?"

She knew that word from school, so wasn't baffled, although she had to admit she never heard it used in general conversation. "Starting to think so, yeah," she said, and grinned at him. "Ready?"

"Get a dressing gown, please. I don't want..." He sighed, shot a hand through his hair, looked at her sideways, and blushed.

She giggled as she grabbed their robes from the closet and tossed his at him. "Jealous much?"

"Just trying to protect your maiden graces," he replied loftily.

"Weren't trying too hard when you woke me up," she muttered as they left the room.

As they made their way down the stairs, Rose noticed with some pleasure that Thete kept a hand on her arm to steady her the entire time. Their relationship was odd, she knew. In real life, she wouldn't even be thinking about what she'd had in mind this morning with anyone before she'd known them for months. And from the conversation last night, she'd be more than willing to bet that he could normally know someone for years and never think of it.

It was almost as if there was something imperative in the way they were together. Time was moving at break neck speed around them and she'd almost expected to find that five years had passed outside their room while they'd stayed in the stasis caused by the speed at which their relationship was progressing.

The most truly amazing thing about it was that she didn't mind. She wanted to know him, know everything about him, be with him for as long as she could hold him and in as many ways as he would let her. They didn't have a lot of time, not if he would be caught and she would be taken home, but that wasn't enough reason to hurry.

He was the reason to hurry. He was honest and forthright and respectful. He was amazing and different and all kinds of words she didn't know that covered a whole slew of concepts from bizarre to curious to fantastic. He was interested in her, both her mind and her "biological imperatives". She was going to love him, she knew that, if she didn't already, but she was happy with that, more than content, joyful.

It was all so fantastic - his odd ways were contagious, too, because there she was, searching for the exact word to cover an idea or concept that couldn't be explained in her language. She beamed.

"Do you have a word for old friends who just met?" she asked him, whimsically, remembering the lyrics to a silly old song she'd once complained about.

He considered her with a bewildered tilt to his head and a question plain on his face. "No, that's not one we'd understand." He shook his head, then, and snatched her hand up to kiss it briefly. They were on the last landing and he looked deep into her eyes. "Wait, yes I do," he said, and his smile came up like the dawn.

"What's that?"

"Us!"

* * *

The hotel manager was standing in the lobby, apologizing vigorously to half-dressed, groggy people all over the place. "False alarm," Rose grumbled. "Can anything else go wrong?" 

There was a low whistle, which Rose understood completely. Thete, she expected, probably didn't. She rounded on the whistler to give him a piece of her mind, only to find Chris standing there, his arm around Jackie's waist, smirking.

"Bastard," she muttered, and went over. "Morning, Mum," she said.

"Morning, Sweetheart," Jackie said. Rose thought she looked terrible.

"Are you ok?"

"S'too early to be up," Jackie said. Then, she looked at them with narrowed eyes. "Are you behaving yourself, young lady?" she demanded.

Rose was both amused and baffled. She used to wonder if her mother had multiple personalities, and it was days like this that confirmed it. "Yes, Mum," she said, rolling her eyes. "He's a gentleman, just like you said."

The gentleman in question was shielding her from most passers-by by standing between her and the rest of the lobby, arms slightly akimbo, eyes blazing at anyone who even looked in her direction.

"Certainly is protective, innee?" said Chris. "Shame he's such a little thing."

"I don't think that will be a problem," said Thete. There was something strange in the way he said it, and the way he didn't even look at Chris while he did but Chris flinched anyway.

Jackie chewed her lip, and if Rose didn't know better, she would have thought her mum was worried about something. "Look, Rose, why don't we go down to that little funfair today? All of us, if Thete's interested?"

He turned and looked at them, and his eyes now matched the smile on his face. Whatever had been raging there had passed. "Is that normal?" he asked Rose.

"Yep, completely."

"Good, then let's do that. We'll meet you down here in an hour." He shot another look at Chris and led Rose away with a hand on her elbow.

"I did _not_ like the way he was looking at you," said Thete.

"If it helps," Rose said, moving her arm down to take his hand, "I didn't either. He isn't usually that bad, though."

"But he always looks at you like that?"

"Not quite, but..." she chewed on her lower lip. "I always lock my bedroom door when he stays over. Look, let's just forget it. He makes Mum happy, I can put up with him for that."

"If you say so, but Rose, if he lays a hand on you, I will not be held responsible for what happens to him." He sighed and ran a hand through his long dark curls. "Well, I might be, but it'll be his own fault."


	8. Chapter 8

John Smith Disclaimer: If there were even a such thing as Doctor Who (which there isn't, only these very odd dreams I have and write down so if they decide to section me, I can claim they were just a fiction I was inventing), then it would, I suppose, belong to me (or my mum, Verity, or my Dad, Sydney) and certainly not to this little... why do I hear this Manchester accent demanding that I call her a stupid ape?

_Having computer trouble. Never buy a Symantec product - they do not work._

_**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. The first set will run through the end of March. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**_

_Don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks for the questions received so far. They have been noted and will be answered._

* * *

**Chapter 8: She Moved Through the Fair**

Rose bought the tickets with her pocket money and she and Thete walked into the fair arm in arm. Jackie stayed with them for awhile with Chris, but before long, the two couples had separated at a little beer garden. "Good thing they didn't drink too much before they left the hotel," Rose grumbled. "Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to drink as much now."

"Let's go ride something," Thete suggested, apparently to distract her, as he turned her away from the beer garden by her shoulders. "I've never been to a fun fair before. We ought to put one of these on the curriculum."

"Yeah, I'm sure your tutor'd love that. You lot can drop him off at the beer garden and let my mum talk his ear off while you go dare each other to take apart the ferris wheel."

Thete laughed helplessly. "You haven't even met the rest and you already know them too well." He kissed her hair and led her directly toward the largest and most imposing ride in the whole fair, a roller coaster filled with screaming tourists. "They sound like they're having fun," he said. However, when they cleared the last of the rickety stalls set up with games and food, Thete got a good look at the thing and turned straight around.

"Oh, c'mon. Be a brave little alien and let's go ride the - whadyacallit - oh 'The Vortex. '"

"I've seen the Vortex," he assured her. "And that looks nothing like it. Although, admittedly, if you tried to ride it in something like those little carts... nope. Not doing it."

"Please, Thete? Please? I need someone to hold my hand, I'd get scared up there all alone."

He rolled his eyes at her and tried to argue, but she brought out the entire arsenal of feminine wiles. The dark-haired young Time Lord eventually followed her like he was helplessly enthralled. She smirked behind her hand, even as she simpered over his bravery.

"You do realize that I'm not buying any of this, don't you?" he remarked, after awhile, an impish grin on his face.

The line was now short enough that Rose only had time to laugh helplessly at her own silliness. "Still, was a good try, yeah?"

"It'd probably work, if I ever become impossible," he allowed, as the carts rumbled to a stop in front of them. "Just keep it in mind for when I get old and grouchy."

She got into a cart with him, wondering if he hadn't realized by now that she wouldn't know him when he was much older at all. First of all, he was going home eventually, probably no more than a couple of weeks, and more importantly, if his people really did age so slowly that he looked her age at over a hundred, she'd be long dead before he ever showed a single gray hair.

The restraining bars came down over them. Thete grinned at her from his seat. "This is, I suppose, so you only cancel your family plans instead of die horribly if you get shaken too hard."

"More like if you act like an idiot and decide you ought to stand up." She took his hand as the carts started to move. "We're perfectly safe," she added, as it shifted sharply and began clicking its way up a long hill.

"Wish you hadn't said that. Your Sod's Law probably doesn't just thwart human sexuality."

They topped the hill, and looked, briefly, over a drop that seemed positively immense.

"Good point," she tried to say, but ended up shrieking helplessly as the cart finally topped the hill and began the plunge at a ferocious rate of speed. Thete held her hand as she raised both arms over her head. It sounded, over the roar of the wind and the sounds of screaming all around them, as if he was laughing.

They whooped and screamed and shouted their way safely through the ride, though Rose found herself feeling quite a bit nauseated from the vibrations of the cart. When the ride finally came to a halt, she couldn't wait to be off it. Thete helped her out, grinning madly. "Can we go again?" he asked, bouncing on his toes.

"How 'bout never?" she groaned.

The grin instantly dropped off his face. "Are you hurt, Rose?"

"Nah. Just all that shaking, wasn't good for my tummy, you know. Stupid coaster."

"Really. They should definitely try to improve the dynamic structural stresses of the cart in motion. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Just let me catch my breath for a minute. Ooh, and maybe a ginger beer, that'd be good."

"Beer?" he asked as he guided her to an unoccupied bench nearby.

"Ginger beer. Fizzy, no alcohol. It settles people's stomachs."

"Right. Bubbles to settle your stomach. Just take deep, deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. If you feel faint at all, put your head between your knees."

"So I can hurl on my shoes?" she asked. "No thanks."

He started rubbing a place just behind her ear, his fingers light and yet focused and delicate. "Distortions in your semi-circular canal. Most of the balance problem and nausea is actually probably coming from too much rocking of the fluid in your ears."

She smiled at him, already starting to feel better. "Thanks, Thete. You know an awful lot."

"It's all the kidnapping and probing and mind reading," he said dryly. "You know, we aliens really love that."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Where on Earth did you hear 'bout all that?" she demanded, trying not to laugh, just in case her stomach didn't like it.

"Saw it on tele, last night while you were sleeping. I'll have to tell Ushas she's not allowed any more field trips."

She tilted her head and was relieved to find that the motion didn't make her stomach feel odd this time. "Why Ushas particularly?"

"I swear that girl has never seen a living being that she didn't want to take apart immediately. Her hands twitch every time she looks at me, dunno why just me exactly, when she's surrounded by Time Lords anyway."

"Maybe she fancies you," Rose suggested, an answer obvious to a human, but maybe not to the young Time Lord next to her.

"She doesn't fancy anybody much." He smiled a vague smile and tossed a flippant hand, as if discarding the notion entirely. "She's quite heartless, actually, moreso than anyone else I know from home. She does seem to get on with Koschei well, though. Otherwise, I'd avoid her altogether. She's cold and calculating - not mean, you understand. Just brilliant and made of ice."

"Sounds creepy."

"Very. Feeling better?"

"Yeah, loads. I'm good. Where to next?"

"Dunno. What's with those poor fish?" He gestured at a goldfish booth some distance away.

"Oh, they're prizes. You know. Hit a target, win a fish."

"Poor fish."

"They're goldfish. Their life isn't much anyway. Best they can do, actually, end up with some kid who doesn't decide to flush 'em."

"Oh. Poor fish."

"Will you quit it?" she asked with a laugh. "D'ya want one?"

"No, no thanks."

"Ok, then, quit worrying about them, they're too sad to even think about, really, I promise."

"But why fish, why not chocolate or something?"

"You can win different kinds of prizes at different tables. Snacks, money, stuffed toys, dunno what else. Can't do the 'guess your age' booth with you, so what else do you like? Can go shoot toy ducks or something."

"Nah, I'm not much into guns. What else?"

"There's logic games. At least I guess they're logic. You have to guess numbers, kinda like roulette." They stood watching this game for a few minutes, and then Thete stepped forward, handed over a few coins, and eventually won enough that people were starting to stare. Rose stopped him at that point and suggested they move on.

Still shaking her head, baffled at all this, Rose led him to the swings ride, the darts booth, and finally, the funnel cakes. Thete proclaimed the funnel cakes to be a gift from deities who had obviously loved the human race. She looked at him, liberally sprinkled in powered sugar, and had to concentrate very hard to resist the urge to lick it off.

He turned to grin at her and dusted off his hands, then reached over and flicked powered sugar from her hair. "You're a very naughty girl, coming up with ideas like that," he said softly.

She couldn't even work up the energy to be mortally offended by his mind reading with his eyes burning into hers, blue like stars were supposed to be, cosmic blue, full of wonder. "Oh, what's that?" she said, instead, in a sultry tone.

"The one where I get to lick all the sugar off your lips, and this little bit you've got on your ear, here..." He reached out to brush his hand over the side of her face.

She smiled, feeling breathless but triumphant. "I didn't come up with that one," she murmured.

"Really?" he said, his voice suddenly thick and dark and seductive. "Hum. Wonder where it came from, then." He winked at her, and bent to do exactly as he suggested.

She returned the favor, nibbling at his lips, stroking them with her tongue.

"Get a room!" someone shouted, in a loud American accent.

"Bugger off," she called back as she stepped away from Thete. He laughed and caught her in a close hug, whirling her around as the lights came up in the early twilight around them.

It was a perfect moment, one she would remember for the rest of her life, the unreal sparkle of fairground colors above and around them, the golden glow deep in the blue of his eyes, the feel of his strong hands at her waist, the smell of him mingled with the fragrances of celebration, the sound of their joined laughter chiming in the warm summer breeze. The Earth turned beneath them and it no longer had the power to make her turn with it as he held her above it, his face so gloriously alive as he grinned up at her and twirled her away from her world and into his.

Thete suddenly froze and set her back on her feet. "Stay here," he ordered and dashed off across the fair.

She looked after him, baffled, then saw the source of the disturbance and charged heedlessly after him. When she caught up with him, he shot her an annoyed look, but reached down and took her hand. "Run," he said.

They made their way through a crowd that had formed around the small domestic disturbance that had caught Thete's eye before. Then, Thete stepped through the circle that surrounded the arguing couple. "Leave Jackie alone, Chris," he ordered, and it seemed to Rose as if the night had suddenly grown darker.

Someone else stepped in at the same time, her mum's friend, Howard, who worked at the grocer's back home, a tall, wiry, ginger haired bloke. Rose was surprised to see him, but too furious to care at the moment. "Chris, you wanker, let go my mum!"

Jackie was whimpering where Chris had her arm twisted quite tightly behind her back. Tears were pouring down her face, and it was obvious to Rose that she was going to have an ugly bruise on her cheek as well. "She's gotta learn, Rose," he replied, "and you ought to too. And mind your own business, you skinny little gits."

Thete reached out and caught hold of Chris's upper arm. He seemed to twist only a little, but Chris was suddenly howling in pain. He let go of Jackie and fell to his knees. Rose wasn't particularly surprised to see tears in the enormous bastard's eyes, but she was delighted by them. Then, without any further concern for Chris, Thete turned to check on Jackie, helping her up, offering her a handkerchief.

Chris jumped up and made to lunge at Jackie again. Howard hurtled in between them and delivered a sharp punch to his face that set blood pouring from Chris's nose, and another to the stomach that doubled him over, gasping for breath. "Watch who you're calling little, lard boy," Howard ordered, and went over to Jackie.

She took one look at him and threw herself into his arms, crying quite hysterically, telling Howard he was her best friend, and asking if he was ashamed of her. She was obviously gone round the twist, in Rose's opinion, desperate and weepy and out of control. "I'd better take her to hospital, Rose," Howard said. "I think the bastard's broken her wrist."

"Thanks," she said, and looked around to see the crowd of people trying to pretend they weren't looking. She was infuriated, disgusted to be a member of the human race at the moment. Anybody could have stopped this at any time, but none of them had tried because they didn't want to get involved.

Some how while she wasn't looking and Thete was talking to a painted-faced clown who'd wandered up to offer police assistance, Chris managed to get to his feet. He charged Rose and sent her sprawling. She landed awkwardly against the boardwalk of the nearest booth and could feel the leg of her jeans tearing as she slid. Then, revoltingly, Chris stood over her and leered at her, the way he had this morning, only worse because he wasn't trying to hide it any more. He was completely drunk, that much was obvious, and completely out of his mind. He raised an enormous foot, probably to kick her while she was down.

Then, Thete was there. He plucked Chris up casually by the back of his enormous neck. Thete's short, thin frame twisted as if in slow motion, and all at once Chris was soaring through the crowd, to land in a mud puddle at the base of the water fountain. "The very next time I hear anything about you, Chris, you had better have immigrated to Brazil," he said in a voice that, while quiet, rumbled with the threat of distant thunder.

A group of uniformed men and women were approaching and the crowd was nonchalantly wandering back to its own business. Chris hauled himself out of the mud and made a run for it, but they caught him before he'd gotten very far, trussed him up, and two of them hauled him away. Another approached the little group huddled around the now adrenaline high Rose.

"Do you wish to file charges?" asked the officer while Thete lifted Rose to her feet.

"I'll bring her by tomorrow," Rose said. "She needs to go to hospital now."

"What about you?" the young man asked, quite solicitously.

"I'll be fine. Just a scrape, and I've had my shots."

"We'll take care of them," Howard assured the officers and took complete charge of the situation. "Rose, you need to get cleaned up and do something about that cut. I'll take care of Jackie, you know you won't have to worry about her while I'm with her, and you really look like you'll need a rest. I'll call as soon as I know something - it shouldn't take long." He turned back to the police officers, shooing her away calmly with a hand.

If Rose hadn't hurt so much, even this wouldn't have been enough to stop her going with her mum. But Howard was right - he'd been there for them all this time and Jackie trusted him. There was nothing she could do and she really did look a sight. Besides, she really didn't want to be around anyone, especially not her mum, when she came down off the adrenaline and anger she was currently riding.

"Call us as soon as you can," said Rose to Howard as he departed with a still weeping Jackie and the police officer. She gave them Thete's room number and then tried to limp away. When Thete discovered, however, that she couldn't do it very well, he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the fair.


	9. Chapter 9

Classic Sontaran Disclaimer: If this author's ownership of Doctor Who would allow us to succeed in our imminent victory against the Rutan Host, we would, of course, offer the might of the Sontaran Empire to her cause. However, as this is not likely, we must return to the front.

_Having computer trouble. Never buy a Symantec product - they do not work._

_**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. The first set will run through the end of March. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**_

_Don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks for the questions received so far. They have been noted and will be answered._

_Note to the anonymous reviewer of Chapter 4: Cute guess, but I'm afraid not. grin  
_

* * *

**Chapter 9: The Doctor**

Rose wished her leg didn't hurt so much as they took a cab back to the hotel. Thete's arms felt good around her, the twinned thud of his steady hearts very comfortable against her body. She could live like that, forever, she thought, that doubled beat the rhythm of her life here after. She would be content, happy, ecstatic.

He carried her up in the elevator and set her gently on the bed. Using nothing more than the supplies he found in his bag, he cut away the leg of her jeans and started to clean her wound. "There's something funny about this bag," he said, as he rifled through it. "I think it's still connected to the capsule, because I don't remember putting medical supplies in it."

"This may sting just a bit," he continued as he brought out a small vial of liquid. "Try to think about something else." But she couldn't think about anything else. She was too fascinated, watching him work, almost feeling it wasn't her own leg involved.

Carefully, with a detached, professional manner, he gently cleaned the nasty gash on her leg. His hands were quick and deft as he reached for things and when he finally sat back and patted her leg, the brutal mark was all but gone, covered in a small bit of some clear plastic-like object. "It should be fine in the morning, and the liquid suture will be reabsorbed by your body," he said. "It works as an antibiotic, as well, to keep it from being infected and will prevent you from having any scars."

"Can I get a shower?"

"Certainly. Completely waterproof." He patted the bandage delicately and she was relieved to feel no pain.

"I take back what I said about you being a shrink," she said. "You should be a doctor."

"Doctor," he mused, still running his hands lightly over her calf. "Yes, I think I rather like that."

She giggled. "Thanks, Doctor," she said, and it sounded perfect.

He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "Thanks, Rose."

"For what? I didn't do anything."

"You were brave and strong."

She laughed cynically. "You were the brave one. What'd you do to him?"

"Nothing much. Venusian karate - I'm the only biped who's ever been taught it, according to my teacher."

"Brilliant." She smiled tenderly at him. "Thanks, Thete, I dunno what I'd've done without you."

"You'd've been your usual resourceful self. Go on, go get a shower, get cleaned up, you'll feel better. Make it warm, and let me know if you have any bruises anywhere."

She hadn't wanted to mention that, but her hip was probably going to be at least black and blue, if she was lucky. "Can you fix them?"

"A bit. There'll probably be some redness still, though, and your muscles are apt to be sore."

She stood and made her way gingerly to the bathroom, carefully banishing the thought of a full body massage from him to keep her muscles from being stiff.

She turned on the water, hoping to wash away all traces of her contact with Chris. Somehow, his filthy gaze had stained her body. She managed to wash her hair and wash herself off before the adrenaline she'd been riding for the last half hour finally dumped and left her dizzy. She started to shake as the hot spray poured onto her bowed head, unheeded. She tried to cry quietly, so she wouldn't disturb her companion, but her fear and the loss of adrenaline weren't listening.

She also, apparently, hadn't locked the door. "Are you still in pain?" Thete asked, apparently from the other side of the curtain.

"Delayed reaction," Rose finally muttered. "Panicking after it's over 'cuz I can't panic while it's happening."

"I understand." She could make out his shadow as he moved across the room and climbed up on the counter to have a seat. "Howard called. They're keeping your mum overnight, because they needed to sedate her. I had the desk clerk change the key to her room and they'll get her a new room in the morning. We can go get her and help her move her stuff. Howard's agreed to stay with her."

"Hope he's paying, we only got to stay here 'cuz Chris's company has a deal with the place. We usually stay some place cheaper."

"Everything's fine," said Thete. "I've handled everything I could think of."

"See, told you you were a doctor," Rose said with a feeble laugh. "You fix everything."

"I think I rather like being the Doctor," he said, capitalizing the word just with the way he said it. "Are you going to come out of there? You're going to turn into a prune."

"Apparently, I'm also turning into a prude," she said. "Cuz I don't want you to see me."

"I need to look at those bruises, Rose. You might as well let me look now and get it over with."

She sighed. She knew he liked to kiss her, and he liked for her to touch him, but he'd already told her that sexuality meant different things to his people than to her. She knew he wasn't indifferent, but he was from an entirely different world, in more ways than one. He was better than her and it was so confusing, this muddle in her head. All Rose knew was that right now, she couldn't bear to see him regard her with calm, cool eyes while she stood bare and emotional and wanting in front of him. Resigned though, by the concern in his voice as he called her name again, she turned off the water, reached for the curtain, and steeled herself for the ultimate disappointment. "Couldn't get me a towel at least?" she asked.

"No problem," and his shadow moved again to the other side of the curtain from her.

She stepped out and snatched at the towel, smirking a little, feeling small traces of relief as she noticed that his eyes looked everywhere but right at her. "Right here," she said as she wrapped up in the towel and then raised it just so. "On my hip."

"Oh," he said. "Hu-hum." He peered at the livid purple patch and finally seemed to resign himself to running delicate fingers over it. "Yes, that's fixable, mostly."

He led her by the hand back into the room, set her on the bed, and pulled something that whirred quietly to itself from his bag. He ran it over her leg, briefly, and her hip went very cold, then gradually extremely warm. When she looked down, the bruise had receded to pink and slightly reddish places, as though it had faded over several days.

"All better," he said, stood abruptly, and walked away from her, stopping to put the little instrument back in his bag, and then studying the wall paper intensely.

"Thete, what is it?" she asked tentatively.

He sighed loudly and turned back to face her, his eyes like blue flame as he gazed at her with longing and regret. "I'm so sorry, Rose. I... I was fine, honest, but you look at me like that and..." He reached out a hand toward her, seeming utterly unable to stop it. "I want to be with you. I desire you, your company, your admiration and respect and, please forgive me, your body as well. I can't stop myself." He swore colorfully, but the only word she could make out was 'Rassilon', maybe their word for god? She was too baffled to wonder.

Her body trembled as she stood up and walked toward him, slowly. He backed away just as slowly, while she considered him like a puzzle.

"I don't want to scare you," he said. "I don't want to hurt you. I'm not some creepy old pervert out touring the galaxy and shagging all the pretty girls I can find."

"I didn't think you were," she said softly.

"But you don't want me to look at you, and I can't blame you..."

"My god!" she exclaimed, "is that what you're worried about? Hell, I didn't want you to look at me, 'cuz I was afraid you didn't want to."

"Oh," he said, defeated. Then he looked up at her, eyes wide with wonder. "Oh!" He laughed out loud and darted toward her, grinning and snatching her hands in his. "We're a fine pair, aren't we?" he said in that haughty little accent he had when he first arrived.

"Yep," she agreed, and punctuated the 'p' with a tap to the end of his nose. Then, abruptly, she sobered. "I don't want you to think I'm some little tramp, going around the world, throwing myself at every alien I come across," she said.

"I didn't think you were," he repeated her words, softly. "And not just 'cuz you haven't run into any aliens before."

"I run into them all the time," she said with mock seriousness, tipping her nose in the air.

He laughed helplessly and hugged her tight. "This is why I love you," he said.

She grinned up at him, weakly, biting her lip around the urge to break out into raucous cheers. "I love you too, Thete," she said.

He grinned. "Say it properly."

She tilted her head to the side, tears stinging her eyes as a deep, bittersweet joy stole over her. "I love you, Doctor," she whispered.

"Oh, that's perfect," he breathed, his face so serious and so beautiful, it made her heart ache. "I do love you, Rose Tyler." Then he bent and kissed her, and it made all his kisses from before seem almost minor and commonplace, this kiss that reached into her body and set it ablaze, that reached into her heart and set it pounding, that reached into her soul and set it singing a song that was the harmony to a melody only he would ever know.

When they broke the kiss at last, she felt again as though her entire life had been changed into something new and wondrous and fantastic, set on a new course that would forever draw her into his orbit, that would wreathe his spell throughout her existence, so that she would be drawn to him and only him, again and again, for as long as her lungs drew air. For all the rest of her life, he would be her true love, her first love, her only love. "Did you want to see me, now?" she whispered as this feeling of perfection settled contentedly inside her heart and made itself at home.


	10. Chapter 10

**Six Disclaimer: No. No. No. She does NOT own Doctor Who, and I resent the implication that she might in any way be affiliated with my sterling, astonishing, and frankly brilliant self! It is larceny, I tell you, and theft besides and... oh. A fan. Why didn't you say so?**

_Having computer trouble. Never buy a Symantec product - they do not work._

_**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. The first set will run through the end of March. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far!**_

_Don't forget to review. Send me all your questions, whether they're BC or AD (Before Chris or After Doomsday) or even Torchwood, if you've got 'em. Need all the pieces to get this jigsaw together right. Thanks for the questions received so far. They have been noted and will be answered._

* * *

**Chapter 10: Learning Together**

He nodded slowly and swallowed hard - she could see his adam's apple against his throat and his hands trembling as she reached the front of her towel. She carefully undid the knot and, smiling shyly, let the fabric fall.

He gasped sharply and stared at her, his blue eyes so dark they looked black, his expression so serious and intent, she began to wonder when all sense of modesty deserted her. She felt like a sculpture on a pedestal, a princess on her throne, a goddess, being worshipped by his eyes.

"I don't have the words," he breathed. "Not in any language." He walked around her and then, as though he could scarcely believe she was real, reached out to touch her reverently, his hand settling on her bare shoulder, cupping it with his palm.

She took his other hand firmly between hers and lifted it, kissing his fingers, drawing him nearer. "I've never done this before," she told him. "So I'm a little..." She let her fingers trail up his chest and made short work of his buttons.

"We'll learn together," he said. "'Cuz this is all new to me, too. Maybe more, because I've never touched anyone before and..." He frowned.

"You must have been very lonely."

He nodded. "I can't begin to explain. But you're going to know..." He stopped and just shook his head wordlessly, going back to watching her, studying her with his eyes, making her feel like beauty incarnate just with the way he looked at her.

His shirt fell to the floor and she ran her hands up his chest, stopping to feel the frantic double beat of his hearts, then wrapping her arms around his neck to draw him in for a kiss. His hands caressed her bare back, drawing lines of goose bumps everywhere his cool fingers brushed her skin. "You're so warm," he commented as they separated.

He let a hand slide up to her breast, cupping the dusky nipple, watching in undisguised fascination as she arched her back into his touch, as the nipple pearled beneath his palm. He tilted his head and breathed on the other, eyes closed as she whimpered and watched him, the anticipation driving her quite wild. When his tongue and lips curled over the rosy tip, she cried out, shocked that anything could feel so good.

"Ok?" he asked as he raised his head.

"Better than ok," she promised and bent her head to tease his nipples as he had teased hers. He inhaled sharply and traced his fingers over her body as she let hers wander over him. Before long, she encountered the waist band of his jeans and popped open the top button, then let her hands fall to her side and looked up at him, concerned.

"We'll be more comfortable on the bed," he suggested.

"True, that," she agreed and, feeling as though she was walking on air, stepped over and sat down on the edge. "Can I see you, too, now, Thete?"

He nodded, gulped nervously again, and finished unbuttoning his jeans. Apropos to nothing, Rose remembered picking those out after he looked at the first pair she found - with a zipper - as though it was invading from outer space. He wasn't used to trousers, he had told her at the time.

He certainly looked lovely in jeans, though. He looked even lovelier coming out of them, though, sliding them down his narrow hips and then stepping out of them. His legs were slender and long and muscular, pale, and sprinkled with dark hair. He was wearing green boxer shorts, and though she longed to continue her careful inspection of his beautiful body, her eyes locked on the front of the pants, curiosity and anticipation keeping them there. She had never seen a naked man in person before, but she was so ready to see one now, as long as it was him. So a naked alien, then.

He slipped his fingers into the waistband and, closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath, tugged the pants off, then stood back for her to see him.

"I... I don't have the words, either," she breathed, admiring the muscle tone of his narrow physique, fascinated by his alabaster skin, looking soft over hard muscle. She wanted to drink him in with her eyes, record him and his every expression, keep this single perfect image of him in her head and in her heart to shield her from the life she would eventually have to lead without him. "You're perfect, Doctor, like art or something. Did you know?"

"No," he said, and sank down at her side, moving somewhat gingerly with his arousal so obvious. "But you're better than perfect. You're Rose."

She shook her head at him, still amazed that this man, this alien miracle who had wandered into her life completely by accident was here, now, with her, simple Rose Tyler.

"There was never anything simple about you, Rose," he said. "Now, I want to teach you something because you may need to know it. In your mind, picture yourself a room, a big one with lots and lots of doorways."

"Ok," she said, and did that, even though she had trouble concentrating with what his hands were doing at her waist and along her legs.

"Now, all your memories go behind those doors. Any of them you don't want to look at and don't want me to look at, you need to close the doors over them. Are you with me so far?"

She nodded and carefully concentrated on sifting through the memories of her life. The vague and odd ones, she shoved behind a door in a corner and shut the door over them. She rarely thought of half the things she was sorting out right now, but it was important, she could tell by his serious tone, so she went through this exercise with as much care as she could take while her body had so many better things it could be doing right now.

"Good," he whispered as she came as close to finishing as she thought she could. "It'll be easier with time and practice. I'm not going to be able to keep from touching your mind - I'm trying, but your mind is as attractive as your body, and your body is like heaven. This way, your privacy will be protected. But I'll feel what you feel and, to some extent, you'll feel what I do. Is that ok, or do you think we should stop?"

It was a completely alien concept. It was one thing to make love for the first time and share that kind of intimacy, but to go so far beyond it, to know that their thoughts would be as entwined as their bodies, to share that much of her self with him? It was at once an enticing thought and a disturbing one. What if he didn't like what he saw? What if she was too alien, too different for him to share with on that kind of level? He was as much more intelligent than she as she was to a smart chimp, so how could he enjoy that touch? Why would he even want to try?

"Shh," he whispered. "I've already told you. Your mind is as beautiful as your body. You're not less than me, just different. And no one in their right mind would ever compare you to a chimp, so please with the bad analogies." He kissed her temple and wrapped his arms around her, comfortingly. "Rose, I love you. If you want to end this now, save it for later or forget it entirely, I understand. I'm not human, I'll probably never be human, and anything I share with you is bound to be very hard for you to adjust to."

"I don't care," she said. "I want to, I really, really do." She turned to him, brushing tears away from her eyes, and letting her fingers do all the explaining she could manage. "Not stopping, now or ever. "

_"Me either," _he agreed, and his lips didn't move as he said this.

Sensations appeared out of air around her, feelings she would never be able to describe even if she spoke his language with the fluency of a native. It was impossible, it was incredible. His hands brushed her waist and she felt them, and felt what her skin felt like to him, and felt his hands on her skin in other places, places he'd not yet touched. She traced a thumb down his thigh and felt the shiver he made and the pleasure he felt that caused him to shiver and the sensation of her thumb stroking his lip and his ear and his stomach.

It was so erotic, so arousing, so other worldly and wonderful. She melted into his embrace and into the shared joy and had never ever dreamed that anything so beautiful as this existed.

* * *

Later, Rose watched him as he slept, still feeling fuzzy and ecstatic from the body memory that tingled on her skin. It had been the most incredible experience, all slow and soft and tentative. The fact that neither of them had ever had a lover should have made it more complicated, but there was something right about sharing your first time with someone you loved and trusted, someone who really knew exactly how you felt. 

There'd been some pain, she remembered vaguely, but it was fleeting, made all the more distant by the feeling of his light and his glowing wonder inside her mind. His touch soothed her pain and his voice soothed her heart and his mind inside hers took the pain away.

Even as he lay there dreaming, now, she saw flashes of his thoughts, his memories, his ideals. Everything was beauty, through his eyes, splendor and wonder and new vistas to be seen, fathomless time and exquisite possibility. A whole universe of majesty flowed from a bottomless well of Life, meant to be sipped from and savored. It would be poured like wine into endless glasses and passed around to him and to her with him. They would guzzle it down, every drop they could hold, until they were drunk from it and it was drunk from them.

She could see herself, a little bit, as he saw her, now, all delicate and intricate and human. She would have expected him to find her humanity a bit dull, but he did not. He marveled in her simplicity, though his staggering intellect could have discarded everything she was as irrelevant. It brought her to tears and trembling to be loved so truly by such a man as he.

And he really could do things to time. The hours they had spent had moved so slowly, she had breathed every minute of it in, just as she breathed the smell of him, the smell she could now name, which was Time itself. She had known that fragrance, she thought, all her life, and had never had a name for it, but it was time, and it was... she paused here and smiled softly. It was the Doctor.

He blinked at her blearily. "Yes?" he asked softly.

"Nothing," she said, warmly. "Go back to sleep, Doctor."

"Did I fall asleep? I'm sorry."

"It's ok," she said, running a hand through his hair. "I was asleep, too, until a minute ago. Just wanted..." She dashed back the tears that suddenly formed behind her eyelids. "I just wanted to look at you."

He held out his arms and she flung herself into them, unable to explain even to herself why she was crying, but he knew, her Doctor, he knew and he understood.

"We're going to make this work, Rose," he promised her softly. "Somehow, you and I are going to make something work. I never even knew how lonely I was without you, how much I missed you, since we hadn't even met. But you're a part of me, now, and always will be, and I'm a part of you, too."

She believed him, though she couldn't see how he could be right. She was mortal and oh so human and her life was as shining and seasonal as a butterfly's in his nearly endless existence.

"Then I will still love you," he said, so softly. "'Til Time itself is gone."


	11. Chapter 11

**Rani Disclaimer:It's nothing whatever to do with me. I honestly couldn't care less what the chattering little un-evolved creature is going on about and, frankly, I'm astonished that anyone cares at all. Obviously, she doesn't own Doctor Who. Honestly, it would be better if he didn't exist, at all, the meddlesome walking disaster.**

_Having computer trouble. Never buy a Symantec product - they do not work._

_**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. The first set will run through the end of March. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**_

PS: I¡m looking for an author who would like to help with a project.�It's AU, Nine/Rose, and I need someone who likes that sort of thing. Contact me if you are interested in a full collaboration.

* * *

**Chapter 11: The Morning After**

The morning came peacefully, Rose found, though it couldn't stay that way for long. Would her mother know? Would she be angry?

The Doctor smiled as he walked her to the cab. "If she finds out," he said, "she finds out. If she hits me, I'll learn to live with it." He leaned in close and whispered right next to her ear, "I did deflower her daughter last night."

Rose giggled and thumped his arm. He chortled merrily and they got into the cab to take them to hospital. "No," he said, "seriously. There'd be some places she'd have the right to have me defenestrated."

Rose blinked. That didn't sound pretty. "What is that, like... you know, um..."� She made a gesture meant to indicate what she was thinking without having to spell it out, but it was obvious that he had to pick the theory from her mind instead.

He laughed again. "No, it's chucked out a window, but there are places she could get away with what you think, too."

The cabbie seemed to think he understood the conversation, because he laughed and then started in, in a rolling Welch accent, "Had a lady try to shove me out a window once," he said.

"Really," Rose said sympathetically. "What'd you do?"

"Married her daughter," he replied.

Rose froze, but it went sailing by the Doctor's head, the horrible thought that had just occurred to her. "How'd you escape?" he asked.

"No, see, that is how I escaped, one trap to another, yeah?" said the cabbie, and he grinned at them in the mirror. "How long're you in town?"

As the Doctor chattered with the cabbie, Rose hastily shoved the thoughts behind one of those doors he had taught her to make and closed it. She felt like she had practically slammed it and was leaning against it, breathing hard.

The Time Lord smiled as he took her hand. _"You're getting good at that,"_ his voice murmured softly.

* * *

It wasn't until they got to hospital that Rose realized how closely her nickname for him was sticking, and how likely it was to keep sticking. The place was naturally full of people saying "Doctor" all the time, but every time someone said it, both she and Thete looked around to see if they were calling him.

"That's so strange," she said after about the fifth such exchange.

"Not really. It just feels right. Not as if you gave me a nickname, as if you found my name."

She rolled her eyes and leaned back against the elevator wall. "And that doesn't sound strange to you?" she asked him, amused. "You make it too easy, Thete."

He shook his head, a grin on his face like daylight. "It's not Shakespeare. A Rose by any other name would not make as much sense."

She snorted. "I thought it was 'smell as sweet.'"

_"No, you'd still smell sweet,"_ said his voice in her head, all teasing and enticing. Aloud, he said, instead, "Yeah, well, that's why he was the genius. Even by my people's standards, he was enormously gifted."

"You're a genius, too, though." They got out of the elevator and headed down the hall, looking for the room where Jackie was, hopefully, waiting for them. With any luck, she was still slightly sedated.

He took her hand and explained quietly as they walked. "Actually, that's true, but it's a bit more complicated. It depends on what you measure the genius with. For example, by your standards, you're not a genius, because it measures only a certain type of intellectual gift, and requires an IQ of 160. But if there were some way to measure the understanding of people, you'd be a genius on par with, say, Mozart. Me, I'm a genius by my people's standards, which are much higher than yours... that's coming out wrong..."

"But it's true," she said, unable to keep the grin from her face. "Rude, but right."

"I love you," he said, laughing softly just as they found the door to Jackie's room.

Rose giggled. "So I'll be your pretty blonde bracelet. You be all brilliant and insightful and I'll hang on your arm being the trophy girl that's so dense everyone wonders how you put up with me."

He shook his head. "And then I'll open my mouth, and they'll start wondering how you put up with me."

* * *

Jackie was standing next to the bed at the end, waiting with a look of annoyance on her face while Howard tried to calm her down. "Does that doctor think I have all day?" she demanded, even as Rose and Thete made their way over.

The expression was immediately wiped off her face by the sight of them. "Oh, Rose, are you all right, Sweetheart?" she demanded, flinging herself at her daughter. She winced as her bone crushing hug put her injured wrist between them and backed away slowly. "He didn't hurt you, are you sure?"

"Yes, mum. Thete patched me up and everything. Just a little scratch." She didn't want to talk about it, really, she didn't.

"You should have a tetanus shot at least," said Jackie sharply.

"She'll be fine," the Doctor said quietly, taking her hand and soothing her. He knew why she was so hesitant, and understood her anger. He had even, as far as Rose could tell, managed to sort out why Rose didn't want to talk to her mother about why she was so angry.

Jackie took one look at him, an expression torn between exasperation and adoration. After a moment, she seemed to decide on adoration, because she grinned and gave him a tight, one armed hug. "You saved my life, Thete," she told him admiringly.

He sighed. "Good. Now, maybe you'll understand that you need to take better care of it."

She ignored him, of course, but Rose had expected that. "Oh, you," was all she said, but she said it very fondly. "Are you taking good care of my girl?"

He was spared having to answer that by the bustling arrival of the unfortunate physician assigned to give Jackie her release.

* * *

They took Jackie back to the hotel and, with the manager and Howard standing guard in the doorway, helped her pack up her things to move. She left everything that belonged to Chris, chuffing in annoyance and more than a little disgust as she abandoned various items in the little hotel closets.

Thete and Howard carried her things down to her new room, since she didn't have the use of her right arm, and Rose hung back with her mother to keep her company and make sure she was mentally recovering. "You said you went to the movie?" said Jackie, quietly. "How was it?"

"Fine. Fun, really, the Doctor hadn't seen them before."

"Doctor?" Jackie asked, looking thoroughly amused.

"Oh," Rose said, and blushed. "Yeah. Nickname, I started calling him it last night. He fixed everything, you know, made everything better, I couldn't help it."

"He seems very sweet on you, Rose. Is everything ok, though? You seem a little sad."

I could murder you for putting yourself in that kind of danger just for a shag, Rose didn't say. She kept to the subject, instead. "Well, you know. He'll have to go back to school and so will I. I don't know if I'll get to see him again."

"Be careful," Jackie cautioned. "You're young, falling in love is easy when you're young."

"Is that why you loved Dad?" Rose demanded, exasperated. "Because you were young?"

"In a way, yes," Jackie said, sadly. "I loved him first because he saw things in me I'd never seen in myself but wanted to."

"The Doctor tells me I'm a genius, and beautiful, and that he loves me. As amazing as he is - a real genius, and..." she stopped herself before she said too much and drew a breath. "I see what you mean, but I already know I'm gonna get hurt, so it doesn't matter."

"Oh Rose," said Jackie, so sadly, so bitterly.

"Look, don't worry about me," Rose said. "You've got more important stuff to think about right now. We ought to talk to the police, see if we can't get an order to keep Chris away from you..."

"Chris is a filthy, lowlife coward. What your Doctor told him last night after he flung him across the fair? He'll be on his way to Brazil as soon as the police let him out. That boy's strong, he doesn't look it at all."

"He's taken martial arts and stuff. Like that 80's movie, had a really special teacher and stuff."

"You know, if anyone else claimed half the stuff he does..." The Doctor and Howard had come back down the hall and Jackie stared at them nervously, chewed her lip and then decided, apparently, that she'd just as well say it. "If anybody else had said that stuff, I wouldn't have believed them, I'd've thought they were mad or lying."

"I'll never lie to you, Jackie," the Doctor said. "Not even if I have to tell you something you don't want to hear. Like right now, I'm going to tell you we dumped all the alcohol."

"That's wasteful," Jackie scolded, while he stood there looking at her, blue eyes dark and intense. Rose, because she could still hear him in her mind, knew he was openly daring Jackie to argue with him. Finally, Jackie looked away and sighed. "Probably shouldn't have it right now, anyway, after they drugged me last night."

"Good point," he agreed. "You should have a good meal and some proper sleep. I've given Howard here a list of things you should have to help get your strength back, and you'll want to keep that arm out of harm's way, too."

Jackie rolled her eyes at him. "So she gives him a nickname and now he thinks he's a bleeding doctor."

"The Doctor," he corrected. "The original, you might say." He smiled fondly at Jackie, then turned to Howard. "Fruit, Howard. Does a body good and all that. Especially bananas, lots of potassium in a banana. But don't let her say no to a satsuma, either. Never know when one of those will come in handy."

Jackie sighed. "I could do with a nap, and that's the truth. And a cup of tea, if I'm allowed that?" she added sarcastically.

"Tannic acid, and free radicals, very good for you," he agreed. "Go ahead, don't mind us. Feeling a bit nappish myself."

When they left Jackie and her friend at the door, Rose rolled her eyes at the young Time Lord yawning melodramatically at her side. "Oh, poor, sleepy head Doctor," she purred.

"Yeah," he said. "I should go back to bed." Then he smirked down at her. "Wanna join me?"

Rose giggled. "Wouldn't want to disturb your rest," she said.

They walked arm in arm down the hall. "You can disturb my rest any time you like, my Rose."

She tutted at him and called for the elevator. "Oh, no, it would never do," she teased him. "After all, you know how biological imperatives get in the way for us humans. We get all whassname."

"Libidinous?" he offered.

"Horny," she agreed with a chuckle. "And heaven knows, you superior life forms don't have to put up with that sort of thing."

"I'm going to turn you over my knee," he said, and pressed her up against the wall of the elevator, nuzzling her neck, his hands wandering up her shirt.

"Funny," Rose mused through a haze of foggy pleasure, "I thought I was supposed to be the one with the..."

He silenced her with a kiss, his voice in her head chuckling.


	12. Chapter 12

**Classic!Master Disclaimer: I, alone, own Doctor Who. I am the Master and you will obey me! What do you mean hypnosis doesn't work on Fanfiction writers? Are they they primitive? Oh... caught in their own little realities already. Where they imagine they own the Doctor... who is, as I've said before, mine. And I will destroy him! **

**_As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. The first set will run through the end of March. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review._**

* * *

**Chapter 12: Black is the Color**

"Seems we've let a genie out of the bottle," Rose mused thoughtfully the next day. She and the Doctor had spent the entire day yesterday in bed, and she had enjoyed every minute of it.

A lot of the time, they'd spent talking, about her childhood and his, going into greater detail about her friends, her school, her hopes and dreams, his goals - things they'd talked about in vague terms, now bringing them close and binding them together. The thing about remembering something with someone who could see inside your mind was that you and they both relived the experience in a way that was intimate and frightening and exquisite.

Their discussions frequently got off course and they'd end up wrapped around each other, naked and burning, caught in the moments of human intimacy in all its passionate wonder. The sharing grew deeper, until Rose truly felt that she could tell him anything, and until their lovemaking was so intense neither of them could be sure where one left off and the other began.

They had left the room once, gone down to dinner with Jackie and Howard, who remained as quiet and practically invisible as ever, but had stopped the Doctor as they left the restaurant.

"You seem like a good kid, Thete, so I'm saying this in a friendly fashion. I've known Rose since she was a baby, her father was my good friend, and I loved her the minute I laid eyes on her. I've never seen her happier, and that's a good thing. If you hurt her, I don't care how many fancy moves you know, I'll hurt you, too. Understand?"

The Doctor had nodded gravely. "I'll do everything to protect her in every way I can," he had promised.

Rose had watched this exchange with wondering eyes. It would have to take something like this, wouldn't it, for Howard to come right out and admit to any sort of emotion. He had been a good friend to her and her mum over the years, even taught her to ride the bike she'd gotten when she was little. She remembered that with a smile, her mum accusing Howard of buying it for her, but he hadn't.

"I love her," the Doctor had admitted. "Always will, forever. Even if things come between us, that's not changing."

Howard had smiled and let it go. Jackie, shocked at the whole exchange, had chivvied him off to their room, either to scold him or thank him, Rose didn't know.

"Genie?" he asked now.

"You know, live in a bottle or a lamp, grant wishes if you let them out?"

He looked at her blankly and she rolled her eyes, and formed a picture in her mind carefully. "'Phenomenal cosmic power,'" she quoted. "'Itty bitty living space.'"

He finally got it, and laughed, but was curious, "What's that from?"

"Aladdin," she replied. "Disney version. You haven't seen it? Of course not."

A trip to the desk and the video store later and she had addicted the Time Lord to something else, besides Star Wars and her body.

* * *

Jackie knocked on the door that evening and Rose let her in, grinning like an idiot. "Check this out, Mum," she said. "You've never seen anything like it."

The Doctor was reclining on the sofa of their suite, watching the Lion King like it was a great historical event. At the moment, he was also singing along to "Circle of Life", and his voice was as incredible as usual.

"Blimey," said Jackie. "Disney films at your age, who'd've thought it. I expected you'd be doing something I didn't want to know about, but this isn't what I had in mind."

The Doctor looked up at her, winked outrageously, and flicked off the DVD with the remote. "You know, Jackie, if you wanted to pry, you have to sneak up. You can't just knock on the door and expect to find people answering _in flagrante delicto_."

"Bless you," Jackie said to that last, while Rose blushed and gaped at him.

"Hum?" he questioned, and batted about the room, looking for his socks, as he silently told Rose.

"She means she doesn't know that _in flagrante delicto_ means mother naked."

"Please, Rose. Your mother is a pretty lady, I'm sure, but I don't think either one of us..."

Rose whacked him with the cushion before he could get that out. He grinned at her and started chasing her around the suite, dodging Jackie quite gracefully as he did. When he caught her, Rose shrieked and giggled and a tickling fit might have ensued.

"Hello," Jackie said loudly. "Mum in the room, yeah? I was just going to tell you two that Howard and I are going to see a picture."

"Of what?" asked the Doctor, utterly oblivious.

"Denmark, you said, Rose?"

"Yeah, or somewhere like it," Rose answered.

"Denmark," Jackie agreed, firmly. "A picture means a film, movie, whatever. What are you two going to do tonight, or do I want to know?"

"Depends," Rose said. "Think I'm going to talk this one into doing karaoke."

"Japanese for 'That sounds awful'," the Doctor joked.

"No drinking!" Jackie insisted.

The Doctor smiled at her sweetly. "I'll take that deal if you will," he said.

Jackie glared at him, while he stood there, hands curled as if into jacket lapels, rocking back on his heels, and polishing his halo.

"Me too," Rose said softly.

Jackie threw her hands into the air in disgust. "Fine. No drinking for any of us!"

Rose rushed her mother and hugged her tightly, careful of her wrist. "Brilliant!" she said. "I love you so much!"

"Ah well," Jackie conceded, patting Rose gingerly on the back, "don't want to get too stupid in front of Howard."

* * *

They ended up wandering down to a little play park instead. The sky was beautiful with the sun just going down. "Refraction of light through the clouds," the Doctor explained, even as he watched it with the same undisguised fascination he watched the movies she showed him.

She smiled at him tenderly and took his hand. "Coming from anyone else, that would spoil everything, you know."

"I'm special," he teased.

"You are," she agreed cheerfully. "Daft, but special."

"Thanks," he said dryly and sat them down on a nearby bench. "I love sunsets," he said after a minute. "There's this planet in the Eagle Nebula. Dolorosa, ironically enough. They have this gorgeous crystal everywhere, clear as calcite, and the same refractive index as what you call a herkimer diamond. They build their houses out of it, all their public buildings, and it grows up out of the ground like trees, too, so it's everywhere. The sun hits it in the evenings and everything explodes into this glorious profusion of color. The sky is green there and turns blue, as the sun goes down, and everywhere there's this prismatic effect. It is literally one of the most gorgeous sights in all the Universe, Dolorosa at sunset. I'd love to take you there."

"I'd love to see it," she said. "And anything else, too. What's your world like?"

"Boring, most of the time."

She shook her head at him, to let him know that any place that produced him had to be interesting and she wanted to know all about it.

His eyes grew distant and his voice lost the new terms, switching back to his original high-born accent while his thoughts poured from his lips like poetry. "It's a beautiful place, you understand, an ancient place that time doesn't touch. There are trees with leaves of silver, entire forests that shine back the light of twin suns. The sky is an amber, orange color, and the grass is rich, bright red. There are places, of course, where other environments have been engineered, where the sky looks blue or pink. All the seas are glass-clear, like molten gold, and they sing in the nights with old music lost to all the worlds. The Citadel stands on the continent of Wild Endeavor, between the mountains of Solace and Solitude, and at the center of the Capitol, there's the Panoptigon, which is the single largest building ever built, so enormous it has it's own weather patterns. You could parade all the armies of the Earth in the left hand quadrant." He smiled down at her, softly, and took her hand as she gazed at him, eyes wide with wonder.

"You could also fit the entire Time Lord population of the planet in that quadrant. We're the minority, you see, a race apart from our own species. Most of them never even leave the Capitol once they enter, never see the High Citadel, or watch the moon rise over the mountains. They live out their lives surrounded by technology and living off of food tablets, never drink water that's not recycled, never touch another's hand. We're an attractive race, by and large, but most Time Lords stay old most of their lives. The place hasn't been invaded or touched by another race in eons, nor by a new thought or original idea. And you should see the symbology. We're very much given to ritual, you see, and everything has to have a symbol." He leaned over and drew something in the dirt.

"Figure eight?" she asked.

"Omniscate. It's an ornate infinity symbol. That's the general term for it, but there are many different ways it's used, and you wouldn't be able to tell one from another. To me, I can see six of them and know this one's the Seal of Rassilon, and that the Seal of the High Council, and that one the Mark of Omega, and it just goes on and on. Everything is so precise and stylized, every day that passes with nothing new sets them more permanently in their ways. Even our language is mathematically perfect, as I mentioned before. Of course, it helps with the kind of verb tenses we need, not to mention that the language, as I said, covers concepts as well as actual definitions."

"What sort of concepts?"

He lifted her hand to his lips and then spoke, a soft, musical phrase that danced in her ears and breathed suggestions of meaning along the link between them.

"What was that?" she whispered, awed at the beauty of the words.

"I love you," he said. "Only, it's more precise, because it specifies you as you are and as you will be as you grow and age and change. It also specifies that this is not a... simple, I suppose... love, but a complex, deep, and unconditional one, and one that doesn't have an end or a beginning. Incidentally, it also identifies me as myself... well, that one's not going to translate no matter what I do to it... It describes me, specifically, we'll say, the person I am inside, the person I want to be when I'm with you."

"Well, that's what I mean, too, does that help?"

He laughed and kissed her hair and held her tight. "Oh yes, very much, my Rose."

"It sounds beautiful, you know, your world. And so tragic, too, so sad. Mine is, too, but not like that."

"I know. But your world is more alive than mine will ever be again, I think. We conquered Time and then never touched it again, afraid of what we'd made ourselves into, and binding ourselves into chains of agelessness."

"It is wrong, you know that, right?"

"Yes," he said. "I thought I knew before, but now I understand. I wish I could take you there, you'd outshine the suns. But it's such a cold, deeply ingrained place that even the light of the sun never reaches them, so I'm not sure even you..."

"You could."

"What?"

"You can do anything, Doctor. Even wake your world from their sleep."

"Sleep. What a beautiful way to put it. Oh, I wish that were true, Rose. How I wish I could."

"Trust me. You don't have to swim with the river to change it," she said.

He nodded, but looked troubled, and she saw in her mind that she'd told him something she didn't understand but he did. It was something that was so simple for her but riddled with enormous consequence for him, even if it did make ready sense to him, even if it was perfect. It was something, she thought, that he seemed to have always known, but her words had brought that knowledge into some kind of black and white relief. She wondered, her mind spinning a little, what she had said.

He held her closer and she felt safe and almost infinitely secure in the circle of his arms, as if nothing could ever touch her, as if she was protected from everything by his love and his tender caress.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, he sighed. "Teach me a song, Rose."

She smiled softly at him. He seemed to enjoy hearing her sing, which was why she had originally suggested karaoke, but he was right. This was much better, just the two of them. She took his hand again, standing up to breathe properly, and thought hard, looking at him, all pale and glorious under the fading light of a sun that was alien to him. That reminded her...

_"Black, black, black is the color of my true love's hair,"_ she sang, such a mournful song, but so lovely. Rather like them, really. _"His lips are something rosy fair."_

He pursed those lips and looked down his nose, as if trying to see without a mirror if she was right. She grinned, despite the solemnity of the lyrics in their minor key.

"_The finest face, and the neatest hands. I love the ground where on he stands."_

"I'm sitting," he said in a stage whisper, and she shook her head at him in delighted wonder.

_"I love my love, and well he knows."_ He did nod at this, a smug little smirk on his face. _"I love the grass where on he goes."_

It was such an old song, so disputed in origin, in tunes, in words. In all the known versions, though, it sounded rather tragic. Scrambling only briefly, she rewrote the lyrics in her head, something that would suit them, better. _"If him on Earth no more I did see, I'd know he'll always look for me."_

She skipped the second verse - it was morbid. Instead, she sung through the chorus again, and then, as he watched her, now silent and peaceful in the early twilight, sang the third with ever rising conviction. _"The winter is passed and the leaves are green. The time is gone that we have seen. But still I long for the days to come, when you and I will be as one."_

She sank down next to him on the bench as she sang through the chorus one more time.

He just looked at her in silence, holding her hand, caressing it lightly as the stars began to peek out around them. She could tell something was troubling him, bounding around in the vast reaches of his brilliant mind. Something had occurred to him, and she could feel the traces on their link, something earth-shaking and brilliant and terrifying and wonderful.

His eyes had never seemed so alien or so human as he gazed at her steadily and drew in a deep breath. She could see star-fire and shadows in them, a storm in full glory building there. "Marry me, Rose," he whispered. "Be my partner. Be my wife."


	13. Chapter 13

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**Simm!Master Disclaimer: Oooh, kinky! Someone ELSE thinks they own MY Doctor. Well, I've got him here in a pup tent, and it's much more fun to keep the poor sod right here than to give him to a PROPER fanfiction writer. Now, one of my fan girls... Ooooh, don't tempt me. **

**_As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for April! The new set will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review._**

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Chapter 13: Koschei

It felt as if all of Time had stopped while he waited on her answer. She trembled and stared at him and knew, somehow, that she had never been asked to make such an important decision in all her life. Well, but it wasn't a decision for her, wasn't a choice at all. She somehow wondered if she hadn't been created for this very moment, if every strand of her being wasn't woven together purely so she could come to this place, look in these eyes, and breathe the only answer she could have ever given him, no matter how or when he asked it.

"Yes, my Doctor. Oh, yes."

He nodded slowly and stared at her, and then, inside her head, the fireworks started, slow and quiet at first, and then some kind of over-arching wreath of glory that shook her like thunder. She grinned at him, weakly, and he breathed deeply and slowly, exerting enormous control, and then stood and lifted her into his arms.

"My Rose," he whispered. "Oh, thank you so much."

Then, he kissed her, and the Universe started moving again, seeming to have changed its pattern and flow completely. Joy, untempered and immeasurable, flooded her being, part of it hers, and part of it his. She felt like her life had just begun again, started over new and fresh and brilliant. She was to be his, the bride of a Time Lord, the Doctor's consort and helpmeet. His partner, his wife.

After a moment, or a few glorious hours, who knew when you were with a man who controlled time, and who cared, they stopped and she looked up at him, the questions reappearing as fast as they had disappeared at his words.

"How will that work?" she asked.

He grinned. "We'll do what everyone else does. Make it up as we go along. I quite fancy a bit of a fence in front of our house, though, I think. Unless you want to become super-spies, still?"

She giggled. "My lunatic genius. Oh, Doctor, what will I ever do without you?"

"I hope we never have to find out," he said with a shake of his head.

"But you can see the future," she said. "Can you see if it will work?"

"Possibilities, again. And around you, the possibilities look utterly endless." He reached out and touched something near her shoulder and she felt a strange, tingling rush of wonder. "This one is beautiful. You and I, at your mum's for Christmas dinner. We have our little daughter with us. She's beautiful - your eyes and my hair." His hands flickered around and lit on something else. "This one is fun. We're together, somewhere, running. I like running." He grinned at her. "The problem with telling your future is that there's an almost infinite number of possibilities for you, Rose. Time loves you, it'll let you do anything you want."

She smiled and reached out, imitating his gesture, pretending to examine a strand of reality near his head. "I like this one. We're popping out to visit a planet a million years into the future. It's beautiful, and smells like apples."

He grinned at her. "Know just the place for that. Apple grass, I think." He caught her in a brief hug, then looked down at her. "What else do you see with those brilliant brown eyes?"

"This one," she said, "is nearly a thousand years from now. And somehow, against all odds, and there were a lot of odds, like you wouldn't believe, you and I are together and dancing. It's brilliant."

He smiled wistfully. "That'd be hard, but you never know." He tilted his head and looked at her, a curious frown on his face. "But you know, I think I see that one, too. Don't worry, Rose. We'll make this work, all of it, I promise you."

"Why do I have the vague yet definitive sensation of impending doom?" said a voice off to their left. It was a dark, deep, humorous voice, not unkind, but strangely wary.

Rose felt her head whip around, searching for the source of that voice, and then, all at once, he was there, stepping out of the shadows as if they were his natural home. He was slender, with dark, short hair, and about the same height as the Doctor. He looked older, somehow, and as if his piercing gray eyes had seen many things and didn't like them.

"Theta Sigma is going to make something work," he continued. "And all the Universe waits in awe and terror."

"Be nice, Koschei, you're scaring her."

"Not scared, not that one," Koschei replied.

He was right, she wasn't scared of him, particularly, but more of what his presence must mean. "Doctor?" she said. "Is he..."

"Alone? Yes, yes he appears to be, my dear."

She would have been quite offended by his suddenly aloof behavior if it wasn't for the voice pleading inside her skull to let him handle this, please, and try to play along if she could. She took his hand - she wasn't going to give that up - and squeezed it gently to let him know she was with him.

Koschei sighed. "What are you doing, Thete?"

"I should ask you the same thing, I suppose. Has Lord Borusa lost control of the entire class then? I'd hope you'd do the human race the courtesy of keeping an eye on Ushas if that happened."

He chuckled, but the laughter didn't reach those wary eyes. "Actually, he's lost control of the capsule. He and Lady Thalia are having to take turns sitting with the thing to make it behave. They're exhausted, and then he lost you and Zedric, and I think he's about to lose his mind, as well, which I admit would be something of an improvement."

"So you volunteered to come fetch me. How noble of you."

"Actually, Lady Thalia sent me. She's convinced you're lost somewhere, starving. Not as worried about Zedric, of course, he had enough sense to take food with him."

"What on Earth for?" said the Doctor, with a smile. "He wanted to see the world, experience it, dive in and drink it down, and he takes Gallifreyan food with him, what was he thinking?"

Koschei suddenly shot him a brilliant grin, and it made his face much nicer, his eyes much kinder. "You know Rho," he said. "Can't go anywhere without planning it six ways or things blow up. 'Course, then there's you. And things blow up around you, no matter what. Thete, what is she, where'd you get her?"

Rose was rather offended by that phrasing, the suggestion that she was some kind of rather exotic pet. She shot a wave of indignation at the Doctor and he nodded.

"This is Rose Tyler," he introduced, grandly. "My promised and beloved."

The other Time Lord studied her carefully with narrowed, haughty eyes and Rose tried to smile winsomely at him, but something in his manner was rather off-putting. He was studying her, not just her face, but inside her too. It was enough to make her shake, except that in her head and in her heart, there was another Time Lord, her Time Lord, the wonderful one who loved her.

"She's incredible, Thete, absolutely magnificent. I'd be hard pressed to say which of you I envy more. Lady Rose, I am at your service." And he took her free hand and kissed it grandly but politely. His eyes were now innocent of guile, all hint of distrust gone from them.

She smiled back at him. "Pleased to meet you, Lord Koschei," she replied.

He grinned. "My goodness, what a clever little person you are."

It was that word that won him her trust - his acknowledgment of her as a person. "The Doctor's told me so much about you," she said. "Something about picking on him about languages."

"Doctor?" said Koschei, and looked at the other Time Lord, eyes twinkling with mischief. "And all this time, I thought you were the Troublemaker."

The Doctor laughed. "Rose found my name," he said and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "I like it."

"Better than what Lord Borusa's been calling you since you disappeared. 'Unconscionable brat' was the best I've heard out of him this whole time."

"Ah, well. He'll learn to live with his inconvenience. Have you seen Zedric at all? It might be better to be worried about him."

"No, he's gone to ground. He'll turn up, Doctor. He's not as clever as you."

And there it was again. Proof that the name would stick with him, probably for the rest of his life. She had changed him.

She sighed and slipped away a bit, leaving the two to talk. The instant she moved away, she felt the Doctor's eyes on her, so she turned back and smiled at him. _"Everything is fine,"_ he said, inside her head. Then, he turned back to Koschei and started talking, the chiming syllables of their musical, precise language swirling around her.

She wandered over to the notice board and half-heartedly read the notices for bands playing local clubs, lost pets, a bike for sale, a local restaurant. The pink and yellow ad for a health spa caught her attention and she smiled as she read it. "Create yourself," it said, in relatively huge letters. It listed the services offered, then "Bad Wolf Day Spa." She shook her head. Surely it wasn't smart business to include the word "bad" in the name?

"Well, I'll agree to that, then," said the Doctor as he came up beside her, Koschei on his other side as if he practically belonged there.

"To what?" Rose asked.

"Koschei's going back now. He's agreed to see if he can hunt down Zedric tomorrow. I'm taking you shopping. Your human customs, right?"

"Um... I guess. What are we shopping for?"

"Jewelry," he replied, flicking the small dangling earring in her ear.

She grinned. "If you want." Then she turned to Koschei and put a hand on his arm. "But you're not going to get into trouble, are you?"

He smiled. "Aren't you sweet?" he said softly and patted her hand. "No, I'll be fine. They don't need to know I actually found what I was looking for, do they? The Doctor deserves a chance to win your precious little heart, and you, dear girl, deserve a chance to know him. It's very worth it."

Rose blinked in surprise at the look Koschei turned on the Doctor as he said this. Admiration, respect, some resentment. Friendship, caring... and...

Oh dear.

She sighed and leaned over to kiss Koschei's pale cheek. "Thank you," she told him, softly, even if he didn't know what she was thanking him for.

He blushed and blinked at her, cleared his throat and glanced at the Doctor with a wary smile. Then he turned back to her and, all seriousness, said, "Best to get that in while you can get away with it. He won't let you, later, you know." Then, he grinned at her, winked, and disappeared into the darkness.

The Doctor waited quietly a moment, then took her hand. They walked away from the park, back toward their hotel. "That was weird," he said, after a moment.

She grinned up at him. "You don't know the half of it," she said.


	14. Chapter 14

**K-9 Disclaimer: Human female interference detected. Doctor Master does not belong to this human. Scanning now. Human female will write Doctor Who stories for a by-line. Human female will write Doctor Who stories unless she is stopped. Doctor Master may be required to speak with her.**

_As per request: The answers to the most frequently asked questions: 1) This story is not AU. This will give you a clue as to where this may be heading, but I take the fifth. Or the JK Rowling, if you prefer. 2) Yes, that was the Master. Pay close attention to everything he says. More on him, later... _

_**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for April! The new set will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**_

**

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**

Chapter 14: Like Wolves

They stopped by a late night Italian place on the corner. The Doctor was apparently amused with the decor of the place. "I think these things look the same everywhere in the entire Universe," he said. "I swear there's even a place like this on Gallifrey, same red and white checked table cloths, same rickety furniture. Same bad lighting." He grinned. "They have holos on the wall of important events instead of whatever the owner's a fan of, but..."

"No, that's the same, too," Rose interrupted. "Your one is a fan of important events, this one is a fan of... looks like science fiction, actually."

"Hu-humph. War of the Worlds," the Doctor agreed, checking a photo on the wall. "Ghastly mess, absolutely classic. Rumor has it, it was a cover up for a real invasion, too."

"Next you'll be telling me the London Blitz was an invasion as well," she said with a giggle.

"Dunno," he said. "We'll have to go check it out some time and see."

The couple at the far table, an incredibly tall bloke with a mop of dark curls and a small blonde woman Rose didn't quite catch a glimpse of, got up hastily and left the restaurant. A waiter darted after them, waving a check, but the Doctor stopped him with a quick gesture. "I've got it," he said. "Emergency workers, never know when they'll get called off."

The waiter gave him a relieved nod and, after getting someone to clean the table, took them to the back. Rose was immediately up, coins in her hand, feeding an old fashioned jukebox because you just didn't see those anymore anywhere.

She got back in a few minutes, and the box was already playing her music selection. The Doctor was toying with a breadstick and handed her a tall glass of water. "Good for you," he said humorously as she made a face.

"It'll do," she agreed, and decided to make him eat pizza, since it seemed unlikely, even in that similar place on Gallifrey, that he'd ever had a pizza. When she looked up to suggest it, he was looking oddly thoughtful. "What is it?" she asked, placing a hand over his.

"Not sure. I think something strange is going on. Sort of... wibbly-wobbly... just odd."

She nodded, realizing that he was seeing things around that she couldn't, strange forces and odd strands of woven time. He was so different, so special. Then, she grinned. He wanted to marry her, spend the rest of her life with her.

"I'm going to marry you," he said, firmly. "As soon as I can figure out a way." He sighed. "It'd be impossible on Gallifrey, even if you weren't an alien, because there's no one to stand for me."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I'm an orphan. You've got a pretty good idea what that's like, being one yourself." Before she could correct his usage, he explained. "The original literal definition is 'a fatherless child'. In my case, I'm completely isolated, houseless, nameless, sponsorless. No one knows where I came from; I am utterly alone."

"Do you remember your parents?" she asked, tenderly.

"If I concentrate, I can remember some things, some times. I have this one memory, and it's frozen in my head." Even as he spoke, he opened up the flood gates between them and she could see it, even as he described it in all its radiant, lush detail. "My father and I, under the sky. The night was so warm, so alive, with a million million stars overhead. We were just there, just lying in an endless field of grass. It was so warm, and the wind was blowing up a tempest. The smell of the air, it was like a summer storm. And he lifted me up - I was so very small - and I felt like I could see the stars better just from him holding me there. I could almost touch them. He said... I remember his voice, vaguely. It was always so strong and stern, his voice, but just then, it was soft and so kind. He told me they were mine, all the stars I could see and all the ones I couldn't. 'All yours, my son,' he said."

The memory vanished then, and Rose wasn't even surprised to realize there were tears pouring down her cheeks. The Doctor's eyes were dark and over bright and he brushed at them with his free hand. He looked so very lost.

"I don't even know if it was real," he whispered.

She tightened her grip on his hand as he dropped his head into the other. "It doesn't matter," she told him, urgently. "It doesn't have to be real. The only thing that has to be real is what you felt. You knew he loved you and you knew you loved him, and that's all that's important."

The waiter arrived then, but Rose shook her head. "Gimme a minute," she told the Time Lord, and then went to the front, paid the bill, and came back. "Let's go," she told him.

"Thought you wanted a pizza," he said.

"I want to talk to you, that's much more important."

Lost and weary, he nodded and took her hand. They wandered out into the sultry night, headed back for the hotel. "I know," Rose told him, "what it was like without my Dad, but I was too young to have even one memory of him. I can't help but wonder what he'd think of me, now. Dragged up by Jackie Tyler in the council estates, half-wild, and in love with an alien."

"I expect he'd be very proud," the Doctor said, morosely. "Except maybe the alien bit."

"No, I know. Once he met you, he'd've loved you, same as Mum."

"She doesn't know what I am," he reminded her.

"Doesn't matter." She smiled and stopped him, right there on the street corner. She looked into his eyes, compelling him to understand, and raised his hand to her chest to emphasize. "You're never gonna be alone again, 'cuz there's me. Where ever I am, _when_ ever I am, that's where you belong, you understand? Whatever you haven't got, doesn't matter, 'cuz I'm always yours and I'm always with you, even when I'm not. Always."

He nodded, taking her words to his hearts. She could feel it, and then he spoke. "Your heart is my home, then," he said. "And always will be."

* * *

They went to their room and curled up together on the sofa, not talking, only holding hands.

"How about your mum?" Rose questioned after a long time.

"No," he said, softly. "There's never anything. 'Cept her voice, once, like a song. 'I'll always be with you.' That's it, no view of her face, no touch of her hand. It's like she never existed. I... I've never told anyone about this, before, Rose. I don't even like to think about it at the Academy, because not many of the Time Lords know I'm so different. They've got their Houses and their parents and their sponsors. All adults they can go to. And I've had no one, until now."

She curled up to him and held on to him, this marvelous man who needed her. She was beginning to understand what he meant about being alone - alone like she'd never been, not even by choice. It was harsh, and hard to think that anyone, any breathing, feeling person could leave another in that kind of pain for so long and not even notice the pain existed.

That must be why Koschei was so attached to him. A true friend would notice another friend's distress, even if they never talked about the reasons for it. And Koschei, thinking and feeling as he did, would want to help, even if it never occurred to him how to do it. He probably thought the other Time Lord went home to family from time to time, just like he did, and that they maybe didn't get along or something.

So she asked him. "What do your friends think?"

"Koschei thinks one of my parents was an alien or something. He doesn't know I stay at the Academy because I don't have anywhere to go. Zedric... he tries to take me home with him. He worries."

"I wish I'd got to talk to him, too," Rose said softly.

"You probably will, you know. I'd quite like to meet your friends and I know I want you to meet mine."

Rose thought about Mickey for a moment and how disappointed he'd be to find her married and probably leaving. They'd always thought they'd end up together, but it was one of those relationships that was just fun, without passion. Even Mickey felt it, sometimes, he'd told her, how he always wondered if there wasn't something better out there for both of them. "I think you'd like Shireen. She's loud but nice. Mickey... he's normal, as ordinary and friendly as they come. He won't like you, though."

The Doctor must have picked up some of her thoughts on that subject because he smiled and nodded. "I probably won't like him, either," he confessed.

She wondered if this was because of the obvious human jealousy, or if there was something else to it. Koschei had sort of implied something when she'd kissed his cheek. She reached for the cover thing on the sofa arm and toyed with it a bit, trying to figure out how to phrase it. In the end, she decided, because the Doctor was the way he was, that it would be safest just to ask.

"What did Koschei mean? When I kissed his cheek, I mean?"

The Doctor chuckled dryly. "Mostly just Koschei being Koschei. He likes his little asides. Thinks I'll come over all territorial."

"Is that likely?" she asked, amused, thinking he probably would, from the evidence she'd already seen so far.

"Time Lords," he said, with a sigh. "We're all very possessive of the things we believe to be ours. I think he was joking, but it might have been his idea of a friendly warning."

Rose rolled her eyes. She shoved the thought 'or a last ditch effort' behind a hastily conjured door in her head. "Yeah, well, Earth blokes turn into right barbarians, so I think you'll be fine."

"Descended from apes, and some of them are still neanderthals in disguise." He shook his head. "In your most primitive, animalistic moments, and in your hard wiring, you become a bit like apes. Your males pound their chests and bare their teeth and shout a lot. Your females tend to be more gentle unless they're threatened or their young. Time Lords don't get primitive, but even the Gallifreyans who do, we're more like some other Earth animals. Your large cats come close, but we're most like wolves."

She stared at him in astonishment. Frightening, horrible creatures from childhood nightmares popped into her head and she tried to find some semblance between those images and the beautiful creature who sat beside her. It didn't work, not even by a long shot.

"Not those kinds of wolves. They're just fairy tales to frighten children. Proper wolves are pack animals, which even Time Lords always are; they're silent hunters, which you couldn't find a Time Lord who could hunt if his life depended on it. But the silence..."

She could see it now, this huge cathedral of a city. A temple, not to some alien god, but to study. And every where, there was a song, but it was silent, an endless color of golden noise that voices never shared. They moved through their lives in quiet contemplation and she watched them through the Doctor's memories, a lovely, delicate, ancient people, certain in their invulnerability, comfortable in their solitude, confident in their prerogatives.

"As I said, we're pack creatures. Everything any of them do is for the benefit of their Houses, their Colleges, the race as a whole. Not a one of them would hesitate to make a sacrifice of a friend or a relationship, if it would be of more benefit to their own group."

"Even their partners?"

"Not often," he admitted, "but sometimes. Wolves mate for life, you know, and Time Lords are joined together when they marry in much the same way. It would be personally painful for most Time Lords to hurt their partners, because they could feel the partner's pain. But since love's almost never the reason they come together in the first place, sometimes I suppose they can hurt each other with impunity."

"Actually," said Rose, speaking from human knowledge that he probably didn't have, "you're more likely to hurt someone who loves you. If you're angry at them, you know exactly how to hurt them because you know them best, know what buttons to push. Plus, you're not likely to care enough to hurt someone who you don't think about. But... well, take Shireen's parents, her mum and dad, not her step-parents. They still love each other to pieces sometimes, you can just see it when they have to look at each other, but they can't seem to get along to save their lives, because it all goes back so far, the only way they know to even talk to each other any more is yelling. It works the same way with friends, too."

He frowned, then nodded. "I suppose so. But we handle that sort of thing differently, having all the words, you know, helps you talk things out. Of course, I'd have to be more careful than most, because you've got a right scary understanding of why people do things."

"I'm clever like that," she said, imitating him right down to tucking her hands into the front of her hoodie and smirking.

He grinned. "Yes, I think you are." He shook his head. "We're going to be fine, together. You'll see."

They sat in silence for another while, Rose thinking the whole time about how much he'd come to mean to her in such a short time, and what life would be like, living with someone you knew would never change while you grew old before they turned around twice. She wished she could give him something in exchange for the kind of sacrifice he offered her.

"I'd never, you know," she said, as she realized what she had to offer him.

"Never what?"

"Never choose anything over you."

"I believe you mean that," he said. The way he said it let her know that he was aware they'd have problems and disagreements and even occasional down-right fights.

But she meant quite a bit more. "I'd never be able to put anyone else ahead of you, Doctor. When we get married, I'm going to take care of you and look out for you and we're going to work together on the things we want. I'd never be able to pick something I wanted over something you needed. You're stuck with me."

He grinned. "Well, you're stuck with me, too. You, I'll do anything for, and I'm not sure I'd be able to choose between you or them, so I hope it never comes down to something like that. Since we're still on the wolf analogy, I'm a lone wolf, and I'll always do things my own way, anyway."

"That I don't doubt at all." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Enough with the wolves. You don't have to be a lone wolf anymore, or a lone anything."

He laughed and hugged her tight. "All right," he said. "We'll just leave it, then. It may apply to them, but it doesn't apply to us, because I'd give up everything I'll ever own to protect you, and I believe you'd look after me even if I asked you not to do. We're going to focus on our marriage and our partnership and let them be the way they are. Put the mate before the pack, if you will." He leaned in, then, and kissed her tenderly. "Maybe I'll find us another analogy, because you, Rose Tyler, would be a bad wolf."


	15. Chapter 15

**_Nine Disclaimer: All right, you lot, listen up. This stupid ape does not own Doctor Who. She isn't going to get Doctor Who for Christmas, and I'm certainly not going to hand it over to her for her birthday. If the Producer does give Doctor Who to her, the only difference is that she might could write a season without those bloody Daleks in it. We done? Good._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for April! The new set will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen: No Ring**

Rose figured anyone watching would have thought their relationship long established. The Doctor was standing in front of the mirror in his trousers and his t-shirt, shaving. Rose had just stepped out of the shower and was trying to figure out how the mirror hadn't been steamed up.

She dried herself without really thinking, more concentrating on watching him. There was something unbelievably intimate about this moment, standing in the bathroom together, going about their business like a long married couple getting ready for work or something.

"What'll I be able to do on your planet?" she wondered aloud.

"Make my hands shake while I'm trying not to cut myself, apparently," he told her vaguely. "But you can do that anywhere." He watched her in the mirror, his eyes so blue they looked black.

She giggled, then shook her head. "Better than yesterday when you nicked yourself. How many species did you manage to insult?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Yours and about a dozen others, I suppose. Still, they could make these things more efficient, you know."

"I know," she agreed. "But then you wouldn't have to buy more. Seriously, though, what can I do on Gallifrey while you're being brilliant?"

"Anything you want, if I have my way. Not that I often do, but you know I can be determined when I want to be. I know you'd never make it as a temporal engineer, since you can't see the lines, but you can work with children or as a research assistant, or in the archives or, I dunno, hang out with the Shobogans in Low Town, if it suits your fancy."

Rose grinned. "So they won't treat me funny because I'm human?"

"We won't tell them, if that's what you're wondering. I'm terrible at plans, but I know that one won't work."

She ran a hand along his newly cleaned cheek, smiling fondly. "I don't think buying me a ring will work, either."

"What?" he said.

"Well, you said we were going with human customs here, and that's nice, but Mum'll notice if my finger suddenly grows a sparkly rock. We won't even be able to wear our wedding bands out where they can be seen."

He sighed. "You're right, of course. I just want to be sure I'm doing right by your customs, make this as binding as possible. Borusa can't object to it if the rites are legal."

"Oh. Yeah, neither can my mum. 'Course, I think at my age, I have to get her consent to actually marry."

"We'll think of something." He rolled his eyes. "Why did I make her stop drinking?" he demanded plaintively of the ceiling.

Rose laughed and kissed him, just because she thought her heart would burst from happiness if she didn't. He kissed her back, then stepped firmly away. "You need to get dressed," he said, "or I'll have to get undressed and we'll never get anything done."

She shook her head and kissed him again, ran her hand along his bottom and squeezed, then darted out of the bathroom before he could catch her.

* * *

"How about... I dunno, a necklace or something?" The Doctor gestured at a strand of pink pearls lying on a bed of sparkly decorations. "You could wear these. Oyster secretions."

"Thanks," she said dryly. "Now I couldn't."

"Well, the only piece of jewelry I've noticed you always wear is some pair of earrings or other."

Her eyes widened in excitement. "Oooh. Can I? I love earrings. I'd never take 'em off. Not ever. Well, maybe if they completely clashed with my outfit, but not otherwise."

He smiled fondly and nodded, caressing her hair. "Why not?" He led her over to the appropriate counter and they started to debate the merits of various pairs.

"Can I help you?" asked an older man with a bushy mustache, who joined them at the counter.

"Ah, yes, please," said the Doctor. "I'd like to find a pair of earrings for my lovely fiance here."

Rose beamed at the man, and he beamed back, then blinked in surprise. He turned to the Doctor, looking quite apologetic. "Oh, of course. I'm sorry, sir, but your special order will be another two days."

"Our... special order?" said the Doctor, looking every bit as confused as Rose felt.

"Yes, for your wedding bands," the man agreed, nodding grandly. "The engraving."

"Oh, of course," said the Doctor.

Inside her mind, Rose heard, "_This is strange. Let's see..._"

"Can we get a copy of the order? I'd like to show her mum."

Rose nodded proudly and the salesman smiled with that fondness jewelers always managed to show toward young couples. It was good for sales, Rose supposed. "Of course," he said. "Why don't you decide on a pair of earrings while I go pull that?"

"Certainly," agreed the Doctor, and gestured back into the case. "There's some diamond ones, there."

As soon as the salesman was out of earshot, he sighed. "Sorry. Just play along. It's probably a mistake, but if not, I'll have to figure out what's going on."

"How is it possible?" she asked.

"I'm not worried yet, if that's your question."

"No, I meant literally, how is it possible?"

He rocked back on his heels, his chest puffing out, his head tilted to the side. With his hands in his lapels and his eyes sparkling, he was the absolutely perfect picture of smug. "Time Lord," he said.

She giggled.

* * *

Rose had just picked out a pair of large gold hoops when the salesman returned. He was bringing a small sheaf of papers. On one of them, the one he handed to the Doctor, was a detailed drawing of delicate, stylized writing. Rose knew it was Gallifreyan because the Doctor silently told her so. It was also in his neatest, most careful script.

"Thank you," he said with a smile. "These are sure to please Jackie. And Rose needs these earrings, so we'll take them now."

"We should have the rings back in two days. Just in time for your wedding."

"Excellent," said the Doctor, while Rose stood there and worried at her lip.

There was no way they'd be able to pull off even a civil ceremony in two days. She remembered that quite clearly from when Shireen's mum got married the third time. The couple had ended up eloping to Las Vegas if she remembered correctly.

"Library?" he asked as they left the jewelry store.

"What?"

"Isn't that where you go to look up important facts?"

"I s'pose," she agreed, tentatively. "I only go to look at the magazines."

He rolled his eyes. "Never thought of expanding your mind, a bit?" he teased. "Poetry, or literature or even a good book of recipes?"

Rose laughed. "I'm not clever, Doctor, you know that. My mind's completely unenlightenable."

"Who in the world told you that?" he demanded, his hawk-like, thin profile suddenly quite angry. "First off, it's bad grammar and second off, they've obviously never known you."

"The nosy old cow who taught at my secondary started it. Everyone pretty much believes it."

"Well, I don't, and I'm cleverer than all of them put together, the stupid apes, so I think we'll go with my assessment instead. C'mon, do you know where the library is?"

"Yeah, I guess there's one around somewhere. Prob'ly within walking distance, too. But I got a quick question."

"Yes?" He took her hand and stopped walking, turned to give her his complete attention.

"The rings, you said there was writing on them."

"Oh, yes. Gallifreyan. Mine says 'My Doctor' and yours says 'My Rose'."

She was so confused she honestly didn't know what to think. How was this possible? At all? In a complete daze of bewilderment, she followed blindly after the Time Lord as he found someone to ask directions and found that library he'd wanted.

"Time travel is real, Rose, and it is possible," he said at last, when they'd found a secluded corner in the section they wanted. "I know for a fact that there's at least one fully functioning - well, mostly functioning - time machine in the vicinity. Stepping back a few days wouldn't be complicated."

She sighed and let it go and, while he found and studied something that apparently he considered informative anyway, she reached over and started thumbing through a book called "Romantic Weddings". There were all sorts of pretty suggestions, but she didn't think she cared at all for all this extravagance.

Still, the various suggested poems and songs caught her eye and she smiled. "Robert Burns," she mused. "So that was the poet."

"Sorry?" said the Doctor.

"Remind me to teach you this song, later?" She held the book out for him.

He read it in no more than a minute, then smiled. "My Love is Like a Red Red Rose," he mused. "Yes, I think you should. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Appropriate," she agreed. She put that book back and grabbed another that looked interesting.

She only realized she was humming when she came back to herself, maybe half an hour later, to find the Doctor smiling wistfully at her. "What?" she said.

"Just... I never want this to end."

She blinked, startled, at the sudden pain in his eyes. "C'mon," she said, and grabbed his hand. "Let's get out of here."

"All right," he agreed, quietly. He set the books back where they belonged and led the way out the door.

As they made their way down the steps, a tall blond man charged past them, followed by a ginger bloke and a short, skinny woman who was complaining loudly in an Australian accent. The ginger bloke nearly knocked Rose over, but the Doctor kept a hand on hers and gestured the bloke on his way.

As soon as they'd passed out of sight, he looked down at Rose with very serious eyes. "There is something absurd going on around here, Rose. I promise I will do everything I can to protect you, but you must be very careful and stay with me."

She smiled and shook her head fondly. "I'll be careful if you will," she promised. She decided not to mention that she was pretty sure she knew the blond bloke in the cricket garb, because the Doctor was looking so utterly disturbed and flustered at the moment.

He led her off down the street, muttering something vaguely obscene about decorative vegetables.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Joshua Stewart Disclaimer: (A shameless plug) I don't think the stupid ape owns Doctor Who, whatever the hell that is. But what would I know? In fact, what would I care, while we're going on about it. I need a drink...**_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for April! The new set will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review**.

* * *

**Chapter 16: Keep Your Friends Close**

They stopped at a small cafe for lunch, merrily discussing possibilities for things to do with the rest of their lives together while they took a seat at a sunlit corner table. "And it's not as if they even notice anything I do, anyway. I calculated a new fuel coefficient to power the capsules without them having to pull power from the Eye and the only thing they said was, basically..."

"...'Go play, Thete, you're not a temporal engineer.' Though, in his defense, he was only 25 at the time."

"Zedric, they've been looking for you everywhere," the Doctor said, smiling warmly. "Pull up a chair, tell us what you've been up to."

"Idiom, again," he said with a sigh. "And it looks like what I've been up to is no where near as entertaining as you. As usual." He dropped into the chair across from Rose and leaned it back on two legs. "Did you ever find your 'husband'?" he asked her, golden eyes sparkling with easy mirth.

Rose chuckled. "Funny thing, that," she teased, cheerfully.

"I suppose we should be formally introduced, now that you're not trying to get me completely confused," the blond Time Lord dropped his chair back on its feet and smiled.

"Aw, but it was so much fun to send you on a wild goose chase."

"You let her call you a goose?" Zedric asked the Doctor, his eyes wide but still sparkling. He shook his head. "Nobody'd deny the 'wild' bit, anyway," he mused.

Rose decided she liked him. "I'm Rose Tyler," she said cheerfully.

The Doctor beamed at them both. "She's clever, my Rose, don't you think, Rho?"

"Brilliant. I could have sworn it was you, but she wasn't expected at all. Tell me, Rose, how long are you planning to distract people who're looking for him?"

"Forever," she replied calmly.

He considered her with some surprise, then looked at the Doctor, who nodded, his shoulders set back with regal dignity and his eyes bright and proud. "I see," he said softly. "Zedric of House Arpel. It's an honor to meet you, Lady Rose."

Rose smiled at him and nodded. "Pleased to meet you, Lord Zedric. Have you tried the chips?"

The waiter appeared just then and Rose ordered three baskets of chips and some fizzy drinks. When he went to fetch them, Zedric turned to both of them and sighed.

"You're mad, the pair of you. What are we supposed to do if Borusa comes wandering down the street right this minute?"

"You could say you were kidnapped by an alien, I s'pose," Rose suggested with a grin.

"I take it Koschei hasn't caught up with you yet, either? Borusa's a bit busy. What'd you do to the capsule when you left?"

"Nothing! I thought that was you?"

"Me? I'd never, you know that."

"I confess," said Rose, poking her tongue out through her teeth.

"See, it was her," said Zedric pointing and grinning. "We were kidnapped by an alien."

The Doctor and Rose exchanged a look and both of them started to laugh. Zedric shrugged and laughed right along with them, even though he obviously didn't get the joke. "Absolutely no probing, got it?" said the Doctor when he finally caught his breath.

Rose fell off her chair, more at the look of incredulity on Zedric's face than anything else. It took her another minute to get her giggles back under control and she stood slowly, wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks and batting at the Doctor's hands as he tried to help her up. She flung herself at him and kissed him firmly, thrusting her little tongue into his startled mouth and delighting in the little shiver he gave as she pulled away.

"Oh," said Zedric. "Well, if it's that sort of probing, maybe you shouldn't mind so much. In fact, Thete, where do I sign up?"

The Doctor laughed and shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "She's taken."

"Oh, I can see that, completely. But this whole planet has millions." He leaned over to the nearest table. "Excuse me," he said to the pretty, sandy-haired girl sitting there toying with what looked for all the world like a deodorant can, "I'm an alien. Are you interested in kidnapping me?"

The girl grinned and rolled her eyes. "Sorry, sunbeam, got enough aliens to worry about already." She stood up and walked over to the door, threw it open, and shouted, "Oi, Professor," down the sidewalk. The little bloke she'd apparently been shouting at gestured frantically and she stalked out into the street after him. They hurried down the sidewalk and vanished.

"Thete..." said Zedric. "Was that?"

"Temporal anomaly?" the Doctor suggested mildly.

"Why is nothing ever normal around you? Even on Gallifrey, even in the capsules in full temporal grace."

"You're the temporal engineer, you tell me," suggested the Doctor with a shrug.

Rose took in the other Time Lord's pale face and wide eyes and blinked, confused. "Doctor, what is it?"

"It's complicated, Rose. I still don't exactly know, to tell you the truth. I'll tell you as soon as I figure it out, I promise."

"I'd love to know how, in the name of Rassilon, you're going to manage that," said Zedric with a sigh.

"That's something I'd like to know more about," said Rose, changing the subject because she could tell the recent discovery was making the Doctor uncomfortable. "Who is this Rassilon person?"

The two Time Lords grinned at each other, their eyes alight with mischief. "That's a hole with no bottom," the Doctor said cheerfully while Zedric snorted and reached around to help the waiter who'd reappeared with their food. Once they were properly fortified with chips and drinks and Zedric had exclaimed at length over the wonders of a properly fried potato, they settled back comfortably and considered each other.

"We really need Koschei here for this, but I think we can give you the gist," said Zedric, talking around the chips in his mouth as if his manners had utterly deserted him. Rose noted with some amusement that the Doctor found this behavior both appalling and promising.

"Gallifrey is old," the Doctor began. "An ancient planet that's been wise and clever since Time was young. Before your sun was even born, Gallifrey was old and set in its ways, populated by a highly evolved race of virtual immortals who were ageless and changeless. There are very few species in the Universe who could have been faulted for considering them to be gods."

"Quite a few did, actually," admitted Zedric. "Including they themselves. They grew bored and indolent and cruel."

"Indolent?"

"Means willfully immovable," the Doctor said. "And they were stuck on themselves."

"You say 'they'. They weren't Time Lords?"

"No, this was before Time Lords." Zedric frowned and started drawing on a napkin as he talked. "These were old born Gallifreyans, before we learned what we know of Time now. They could move through time, you understand, because that's just part of the makeup of anything that is biologically born from Gallifreyan genetics, but this was before the control of it was harnessed properly."

The Doctor dug another pen from his pocket and drew a little grouping of stars for Rose. "They had a lot of power," he told her, "and they were, as I said, utterly without conscience or understanding of the effects they had on other life forms. They ripped holes in reality, entire great swathes of the continuum were plundered for their amusement. They set up huge areas on Gallifrey for terrible games they played that pitted groups of people against other groups for no other purpose than to watch the lot of them die."

"How horrible," said Rose, shocked.

"One of your philosophers said it best," the Doctor replied. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"In most cases," Zedric amended. "Which brings us neatly to our wonder boy of history. Lord Rassilon the Great, first of the Time Lords or last of old Gallifrey, whichever way you want to look at it. And of course, his faithful sidekick, Omega."

The Doctor snorted. "You've been watching adventure films again," he said.

"Guilty," Zedric agreed.

"Theory has it they were twins, or at least brothers."

"I think they were lovers and no one wants to talk about it," said a voice from the end of the table.

"Ah, speak of the Devil," said Rose happily. "Siddown, Koschei, have a chip."

"Thank you, my dear," he replied. "Don't mind if I do." He helped himself to her basket then, apparently just for fun, to Zedric's drink. "Did you spit in this?"

"No, I didn't know you were coming," Zedric replied.

"Your love and admiration warms my hearts," Koschei remarked dryly while Rose giggled at the pair of them.

The Doctor laughed helplessly.

"Now there's a sound you don't hear every day," said Koschei warmly. "Are you laughing at my misfortune, then, Doctor?"

"I'd never," he denied, and helped himself to one of Rose's chips.

"Doctor," mused Zedric. "Yes, I believe that suits you, Thete. Where did you come up with it?"

"His pretty companion came up with it," Koschei said. "You don't think he's that creative, do you?"

"I dunno. He's the one who managed to glue Lord Borusa to his chair for a day, after all."

Koschei and the Doctor looked at each other and smirked gleefully. "Oh, no," exclaimed Rose, "what'd you do?"

"The Doctor's the one who got blamed for gluing Borusa to his seat," said Koschei. "But it was a joint effort, and I'm proud to say your Doctor pulled his part off admirably."

"Sounds like my Doctor might be a bit of a trouble maker after all," Rose said, wiggling her chair closer to him while he looked quite sheepish about it. "See, Doctor, that's the thing about friends. You have to keep them, because they know all the embarrassing stories."

Zedric and Koschei exchanged a look. "Oh, we do," Koschei admitted. "Let's see, he was what, ten, when we first met him?"

"Yes, and he looked like a little imp or something," Zedric said, shaking his head while the Doctor blushed.

"He was tiny, Rose. Nothing but piping voice and great big blue eyes." Koschei sat back and called the waiter over.

"Wish we had holos," Zedric said.

"He was such a pretty baby," Koschei said wistfully. "And already more mischief than an entire room full of Time-tots put together. We were a little ahead of him at the time - well, a lot ahead of him at the time. The Doctor's never been one to just let it be, though, and he alternated between failing abysmally and having to be accelerated just for the safety of his classmates. You can't keep a child that intelligent in with a group of novices, even if they're no more than five years his senior. They're all still trying to find out how to do basic temporal calculations and this one..."

"Oh, Rassilon, I remember that. Lord Borusa almost spawned a process."

"What'd you do?" Rose asked gleefully. She could feel his discomfort, but it was a humorous sort of embarrassment, the kind of feeling she would get when her mum told the story about how she'd snuck out to practice her gymnastics in the middle of the night.

"Builtablackholeinthesciencelab."

"What?"

Zedric laughed. "He generated a proto-star in one of the classrooms. And - here's the hilarious part - he managed to keep it stable for several days instead of properly dispersing it. Don't ask me how, and I should know."

Koschei turned back from his chat with the waiter. "Me either, and that's saying something. However, whatever gravity field he was using was actually less stable then his pet star. What'd you call it again, Doctor?"

"Sparkle," the Doctor admitted, shaking his head. "What, I was fifteen. We're lucky I didn't name it something appalling."

"Like Spot?" suggested Rose.

He grinned and nodded while Koschei continued the story undeterred.

"So the little thing collapsed under it's own weight. And it's a black hole, so of course, it started trying to suck things in. But it was a tiny one, and the Time techs latched onto it and relocated it into the power grid, just like they would with the ones they're supposed to be capturing. Almost didn't think anything of it, except Lord Borusa noticed the mess in the lab, and the techs noticed that one of their proto-singularities was abnormally stable. Not to mention being over quota."

"They traced Sparkle back to Prydon Academy," said Zedric, "and of course we all got woken up in the middle of our rest period and brought into the lab to find out which one of us did this. The Postulants, not the Novices. It didn't occur to the head of Prydon Academy that one of his gifted innocents might be the culprit."

"He blamed you, as I remember, Zedric," commented Koschei.

"Yes, well, you can't fault him for that. Father was a stellar engineer, after all, and House Arpel turns out at least one of those every generation."

"Well, but none of us had done it, so he made poor Zedric track down the culprit - he assumed, I suppose, that Zedric was responsible somehow. So I volunteered to help him and we tried everything to trace it. Finally, we just gave up and went back to the lab to see if there was some other clue. And here was little Thete, four foot high and oh so sad, and when we managed to pry out of him what was wrong, we found our responsible party and didn't know how we could possibly be expected to tell on him."

"Seriously, Rose, he was precious," said Zedric.

"Oh, now I'm offended," the Doctor pouted. "I haven't been precious a day in my life."

Koschei looked at Rose and beamed at her as she was about to argue with the Doctor. How could he have been anything but adorable? "That's exactly what Lord Borusa said. But then he realized that a Novice had done this, all by himself. He accelerated Thete the next week."

"He also made me clean up the lab, the grouchy old vulture."

"What's a vulture?" asked Zedric.

"It's a bird that lives off of dead things," Rose replied.

"He certainly looks like he lives off of dead things," Koschei groused. "He's furious at the pair of you. I'd advise you to sneak back on board and get lost in the corridors until we get back to Gallifrey. Then you can claim you were there all the time and just got lost looking for the facilities."

"Be nice, Koschei, it's a wonderful ship."

"Doctor, that ship was old when Rassilon was wearing short robes."

"Oh, that reminds me. We were telling Rose about Rassilon," said Zedric.

"You didn't tell her about the Dark Time, I hope?" said Koschei mildly.

"You know I won't keep secrets from her, Koschei. And they're not our fault. Yes, it's a shameful past, and yes, we have to live in a Universe generated by the consequences, but our responsibilities lie in protecting the present and future, not pushing the past under the rug and pretending it doesn't exist."

Rose, who could see a heated philosophical debate in the offing, moved to distract them immediately. "But how did he find out?" she asked.

"What?"

"Borusa. How did he find out if you weren't going to tell him about Mr. Baby Science Wiz here?"

They all looked at each other and then the Doctor smiled at her and took her hand. "Borusa's like that, Rose. Ideas within ideas, layers within layers within layers. We can all learn a thing or two from him, but sometimes he's so clever he even tricks himself. "

"Oh," she said, wondering what they meant. At a guess, she'd bet he'd been waiting for them when they were trying to figure out how to not tell on little Thete, but maybe he'd known all along or something.

She could feel the Doctor turning his own observation over in his mind. He looked at her and took her hand, and she felt the sudden suspicions ticking off in those vast corridors. Something odd was going on somehow, but both the Doctor and Zedric had escaped him. Then Koschei had been sent but no one seemed to be acting to drag any of them back.

"I wish you could meet him," the Doctor said at last. "You'd be able to tell."

Her face was beaming with pride at this confident assertion, his trust in her so absolute it staggered. But inside, she worried that this adventure they were setting on was somehow going to be destroyed before it even began.

He shook his head and asked the waiter for the bill as the man passed by. "Let's go back to our room," he said. "You two can come with us, if you like," he added to the two Time Lords who had been watching them both with curiosity.

Koschei grinned. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed.

"Now I'm scared," said Zedric.


	17. Chapter 17

_**Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart Disclaimer: All right, you men, listen up. We've a little spot of bother with this author who does not own Doctor Who. As you're aware, the information is classified top-secret. And I don't know what that thing is menacing her but... never mind. Be quick about it. You there! Fan-fiction writer! Five rounds, rapid!**_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for April! The new set will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**Chapter 17: Strange Insights**

They stopped on their way at the nearest registration office. Zedric was fascinated, Koschei quite bored. Rose knew there was probably a staggering amount of paper work, but the Doctor went straight to the notices that had been posted. Not certain what he was looking for, she went with him.

"Yes, there we are," he said softly.

"What?" she said in astonishment.

"Right here," he showed her.

And there was the announcement, listing "Rose Marion Tyler" and "Theta Sigma" as planning to be married in only two days time. The date, time, and place of the wedding was listed, which she thought was a good thing, since she didn't want to miss it, even if she'd never even scheduled the thing.

Koschei ignored the pair of them, in favor of staring out at the people who walked by. While the Doctor memorized the information in the notice, she walked up to the other Time Lord and smiled at him carefully. "What is it?" Rose asked him, concerned at the baffled look on his face.

He smiled, his grey eyes amused and gentle. "You can't see it, of course," he said, politely, "so I apologize for ignoring you. Are we all finished here?"

"Everything but the bird seed, from the looks of it," Rose said with a shrug.

The Doctor's voice in her head, though, urged her to say nothing more, so she changed the subject. "Can we go now?" she asked.

"On our way," the Doctor assured her. Zedric put down his magazine and the four of them continued up the street, laughing and trading bits of humor and silliness, like they were all old friends. The Doctor winced once when they passed a large bloke dressed in the strangest outfit Rose had ever seen, with a ginger haired woman trailing after him, screeching, but other than that, he seemed to be coming to terms with what was obviously a frightening situation.

Which was more than she could say for herself. She was getting married in two days' time, which was a relief, but she had no idea how, which was unnerving. She resigned herself to discussing it later. The two Time Lords, they didn't need to be involved in this - it wasn't safe, not really. They might love the Doctor, but their instincts and training would always move to protect the sanctity of Gallifrey.

"What do you mean, humans aren't allowed?" she asked, suddenly noticing Koschei's mention of that fact. "Why? Humans in particular? That's mad. We're still waving sticks at each other, for God's sake."

"Literally," added the Doctor. He kept her hand tight, and his confidence in his friend seemed to be wavering a bit. It made her very nervous.

"It's nonsense, I'm sure," Koschei reassured her. "They probably found a time line in the Matrix ages ago that humans will conquer Gallifrey or something."

"Matrix?" she asked. "Like that movie? All computer generated worlds and stuff?"

Koschei grinned. "Maybe someone stole the idea? I've never heard it has worlds or anything. Think of it as that 'hole with no bottom' the Doctor keeps bringing up. They keep us there, our souls if you will, when we're gone. Eternal life, in its way; when it all ends, we still continue. I've heard that the President can actually gain information about the future from the Matrix, but I've no idea if that's true." He shrugged and looked nervously at the Doctor. "We'll figure something out," he said. "You can't worry about that, now."

The Doctor relaxed and turned to Koschei with a happy smile lighting his face. "I trust you," he said quietly.

Koschei nodded, his eyes serious. "I enjoy seeing you happy, Doctor," he said.

"People, please," said Zedric, rolling his eyes. "You get any more emotional and we'll have to put you on a holo-drama."

"You've got daytime tele?" Rose asked him, grinning.

"Pretty much a Universal constant," he admitted. "Mind, ours isn't as exciting as yours."

"He's been watching Eastenders," the Doctor told Koschei.

"So what if I have?" Zedric demanded.

"Can we introduce him to your mother, Rose?"

She just laughed.

She felt a sudden, odd tingle in the back of her neck, as if she was being watched but, when she turned, there was no one there. The Time Lords all glanced back the way they had come but, seeing nothing, they all shrugged it off and moved on.

* * *

"So are you going to tell me about this Rassilon bloke?" Rose asked, curled up with her head in the Doctor's lap.

Their two guests were wandering around the room, playing with the DVD player, turning the radio on and off, arguing over the Gideon Bible and the phone book they found in the desk drawer, and generally acting like aliens on a tour.

"Right," said Koschei. "I forgot." He settled himself into the arm chair, munching on a apple he'd snatched from the fruit bowl they had on the table. "There was a war," he said. "They've told you about the Dark Time, so you know the old Gallifreyans were constantly picking up things and people from other planets. In this instance, they caught something they couldn't handle - the Great Vampires."

"What, seriously vampires? Like... Count Dracula?"

"Yep," the Doctor said, and ran his hand lazily through her hair. "Well, hemovores, but they called themselves Vampires and under the circumstances, no one had time to argue. They're nearly as fast as Time Lords, you see, and almost as strong. Plus, where the old Gallifreyans were concerned, they were harder - much harder - to kill."

"I thought they were immortal? Come to it, I thought vampires were immortal," she added.

"Immortal but not invulnerable." Zedric shook his head and started drawing again, this time on a bit of hotel stationery the Doctor hadn't already drawn on. "You can destroy the bodies of either race - it is possible. The problem with being immortal is that your... reproductive methods become severely limited to protect the ecosystem."

"So what happened?"

"Gallifreyans had been mostly sterile for generations," the Doctor said. "And the vampires - well, you know how they reproduce. The war wiped them out, but it also decimated the Gallifreyan population, nearly to the point of no recovery."

"Enter Rassilon," interrupted Koschei. "An architect of some note, but really the last sort of person you would have expected to rebuild a society from ground zero. He gathered to him the best and the brightest and set to do just that. Within the first 20 years, they'd developed the bio-data extracts, a living genetic template string for any person who exists. Using those genetic templates and several advanced techniques, he produced a whole new generation of Gallifreyans within fifty years of the war."

"So they, what? Like, I dunno, knitted people or something?"

"I like her, Doctor," said Koschei. "We have to keep her, she's silly."

"It sounds better than what they really do," the Doctor said with a shrug.

"We're all what you'd call test tube babies, Rose," Koschei said. "Created from selected strands and - effectively - conjured into existence."

"You could invent it," Zedric put in with a shrug. "Some sort of way to loom people together or something. Slip her name in on the write up, help hide her, actually."

"Ushas could help," Koschei agreed.

"No," said the Doctor. "You'd have to be in charge or she'd leave out something important. Like free will."

"Not that they wouldn't have us all defenestrated for it if we tried," Zedric added.

"What is it with you lot and chucking people out windows?" she demanded.

"Falls kill Time Lords," Zedric said. "Not the easiest thing in the world to do, otherwise."

"And not always guaranteed then," Koschei shot back. "Our bodies have temporal mechanisms in place to make it difficult to guarantee even death from falling. That's what happens when you exist simultaneously in four active dimensions. We're built to fight mortality from the nursery to the pyre."

"Are you a biologist then?" Rose asked him.

He smiled and tapped out a little rhythm on her shoe. "No. The name won't translate. The closest you have is a genetic engineer. Or maybe a bit of a psychologist. It's complicated. My expertise is in the sciences of the mind and body."

"A doctor, too, then?"

"No." He shrugged. "I'm no healer. That's this one's prerogative." He gestured at his friend, who shrugged.

"Ushas is the biologist in our group," Zedric put in. "She's a genius too, the Doctor's same age, actually, accelerated, like he is. We're usually grouped that way, so that between the members of any given class, we can do anything we're called to do."

"Like a pack," Rose said to the Doctor, who beamed at her and dropped a kiss on the end of her nose.

"It started with Rassilon," the Doctor told her. "His group wasn't just architects like himself. He had healers and engineers and geneticists, physicists, technologists, the works."

"So what's your specialty, then?" she asked him, confused. He'd said he was going to be an engineer, but then they called him a healer.

Koschei shrugged. "The Doctor's special."

"I'm good at thermodynamics," he said.

"What's that?"

"Universal physical law on the scale we work with it," said Zedric. "But he's a bit of everything, fills in the gaps, keeps us together, learns anything the rest of us do plus the bits we don't know. He's a genius and his mind hasn't got limits."

"I wouldn't go that far," the Doctor said, blushing hotly.

The other two laughed at him. "All right, then," conceded Koschei. "We'll call him - man of all work, what's the phrase?"

"Jack of all trades?" she suggested.

"That's it."

"I like 'Doctor' better than 'Jack'," Rose said with a cheeky wink at her alien lover while he tried his best to contain his embarrassment. She knew what they meant. He, the lonely orphaned child, younger than all of them and forever set apart, was still the one they looked to, the one they looked _up_ to, the one who led them, often without him ever knowing. He was naturally gifted in ways she didn't have words to explain, but they had to do with understanding and strength of character and courage.

"Can we just get back to Rassilon?" asked the Doctor. "He rebuilt the society and, with the help of the stellar engineer, Omega, discovered a way to remake these slightly temporal immortals into the ultimate temporal power. All they had to give up in exchange was a portion of their immortality."

"What he means..." began Zedric.

"No, he's got it right," said Rose. "If you explain it any more, my tiny human brain will explode. If I'm guessing right, what he's saying is that you're not exactly meant to be physical anymore."

They all three gaped at her.

"What?" she said, affronted. "I watched Star Trek."

"Low budget science fiction gave you information that even we don't understand about ourselves half the time?" asked Koschei.

"No wonder," exclaimed Zedric, staring at the Doctor. "Her mind works like yours, all bounce and sudden brilliance."

"I've noticed," he agreed with a proud smile. "She's also got a real insight into the way people's minds work, so watch out for her."

"Sitting right here," she sing-songed, raising herself from the Doctor's lap to glower at the Time Lords.

The Doctor cuddled her close and kissed the top of her head. Koschei smiled fondly at the two of them and stood. "I'd better go," he said. "Let them know I haven't found you yet. Are you going to go back now, Rho?"

"Not a chance," said Zedric. "Besides, we've only told Rose the true parts. We haven't even gotten into the fairy tales yet."

"And on that note, I will definitely take my leave," said Koschei, rolling his eyes. "Stay out of trouble, Doctor, and I'll do what I can."

"Thank you, Koschei," he said quietly. "You're a true friend."

Rose stood and kissed his cheek again, then saw him to the door, making sure the hall was clear of anyone before she let him out. She went into the small kitchenette and made them all tea before she returned to the little sitting area. "All right," she said, settling in again with her feet in the Doctor's lap and her head on the sofa arm, "tell me about the fairy tales."


	18. Chapter 18

_**Captain Jack Harkness Disclaimer: The Doctor... hum, no idea who he belongs to. He's sort of a mystery. Not to me, I've tried. Not to the fan-fiction writer, either. She's tried hard, too. Never took a jaunt through the Vortex on the outside of a ship, though, so I think I have her beat. And one of these days, I swear, he's gonna let me buy him that drink!**_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for April! The new set will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

_Reviews welcome. Flames cheerfully accepted for this chapter especially. Thanks!_

* * *

**Chapter 18: Fairy Tales  
**

"So is he right?" Rose asked, sipping idly at her tea. "Were they lovers or something?"

"I doubt it," Zedric said with a shrug. "They were both partnered and Rassilon at least was reputed to be insanely in love with his second wife."

"Doesn't mean he couldn't have loved them both," Rose said with a shrug.

The Doctor rolled his eyes at her. "You just like romantic little stories. Let's see. How'd that poem go?"

"Oh, joy," Zedric grumbled. "You're about to be treated to the Dr. Seuss translation of a Gallifreyan legend."

"I can't help it if the man was a genius!" the Doctor replied hotly.

"I can't believe either of you know who Dr. Seuss was."

"Taught the lot of them English with Green Eggs and Ham," the Doctor replied, twinkling at her.

"Oh, now that's genius," Rose said and sat up again to kiss him soundly.

"I remember. _'Rassilon, he took a bride. She took his love and went to hide. Encapsulated for her crime, he kept her in the heart of time.'_"

"That's what you made of that story?" Zedric howled with mirth. "Doctor, it needs work."

"I'd like to see you do better," he replied, looking quite wounded.

"I'll just tell her the whole story, shall I?"

"You do that," the Doctor agreed, but he pulled Rose into his lap and held her close, his chin on top of her head. "Don't listen to him, my Rose. My poems are good."

"In the story, Rassilon is a demi-god or Time Lord prince or the like," Zedric began. "All the powers people ever attribute to him and then some. The story says he wandered the Universe for a while, looking for new and unusual things, and one day, he happened to find himself talking to an ordinary girl. He got to know her, spent timeless time with her, and one day woke up completely love struck."

"Only she turned out not to be an ordinary girl, right?" said Rose.

"Right," said Zedric, looking confused. "How'd you know?"

"We have a similar story. She turns out to be a fairy queen in our story. What was she in yours?"

"Hard to explain. A goddess in mortal form, a star-born creature as old as time, the Vortex itself hiding in the body of a woman. The closest, I suppose, for your pantheon... Eris, isn't it Doctor? Goddess of Chaos?"

The Doctor nodded. "Foundational chaos, though. Chaos that gives birth to dancing stars. Order is implicit in temporal chaos, along with beginnings and endings. But Eris, I suppose, will do." He shrugged, then grinned. "They say she liked blue," he offered.

Zedric rolled his eyes and ignored that last, blithely continuing his story while toying with his tea cup. "She loved him right back and returned with him to Gallifrey. It's said his sons rather disliked her - that'd be my ancestors - but they couldn't work against her. She was a fully fledged goddess, a being whose will is reality. She would disappear for decades at a time and turn back up again, and he would take her right back every time. Then one day, she came back with a small Gallifreyan child - his child, their child. Then the sons really did have something to plot against, because their father doted on the baby and they expected him to replace them."

"Weird. Didn't have laws about those sorts of things?"

"Probably," said the Doctor. "But in the story, Rassilon's word was law. Actually, most of the laws are Rassilon's word, but never mind." He waved a flippant hand at Zedric. "Continue, oh story teller."

Zedric shook his head. "She learned that the sons of Rassilon had plotted against her child and she made it vanish."

"What?!" demanded Rose.

"She had the whole temporal vortex at her command. She sent the child away. Rassilon, in his grief, had her sealed up so that she couldn't escape again."

"Sealed up? How?"

"Just what the Doctor said. The legend just says 'encapsulated in the heart of time'. Doesn't even make sense to us, but we pass it on that way, anyway."

"What happened to the baby?" Rose asked now, in a soft, plaintive voice.

"Well, supposedly it was a few years old by that point, about five or so. But no one knows what became of it, or if it was even a boy or a girl."

"Supposed to turn back up, though," the Doctor added. "At the End of Days - how's that for a nice apocalyse for you? Every once in a while some lunatic gets the bright idea that it'll turn up in this House or that one and starts picking the members off in an attempt to prevent the end of the world."

"That's insane."

"Hence the word 'lunatic'," the Doctor agreed. He set her down on the sofa then and started collecting their tea cups. "There's more - that the goddess will share her power with her child, or that she'll share it with someone who can save the kid's life. Or that she'll use it to bring Rassilon back at the appointed time, or that she's been dead and gone for eons." He shrugged. "I don't understand the stories like that. They should have a correct ending."

"He never peeks at the last page," Zedric said. "Even in textbooks with the answers there. But give him a story with an off ending, and he'll monologue for two days against it, the author of it, his ancestors, his descendants, his planet and species, the publishers and editors and, if it's bad enough, the booksellers as well."

"They shouldn't sell it if it wasn't fit to be written in the first place," said the Doctor indignantly.

"Was he nice?" Rose ventured.

"Who?" Zedric asked.

"Rassilon, was he nice or did he rule with an iron fist or something?"

"The official history is that Rassilon was a good and wise ruler all his days," the Doctor said with a wink. "The unofficial history says he was a right monster who was eventually imprisoned by the Time Lords he and Omega created."

She thought about this. Opposing accounts usually either meant that one was right and one wasn't, or that there was a middle ground somewhere that no one understood. "Was he really a god?"

"Very probably," the Doctor said. "By Zedric's definition, anyway, a being whose will is reality. Very likely."

She considered. "Then he was probably good," she decided.

"You think all gods are good?" asked Zedric with some surprise.

"No," she said with a snort. "You should see some of the ones in our legends. I just think that any god who steps down is probably good. Because, it's like the Doctor said. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that."

The Doctor grinned at her. "Rose Tyler," he said, "you are amazing."

She grinned. " I know. But it really is like a Bible story, or something, isn't it? This kid of a god person who comes back just in time to save the world at the end."

They both looked at her pityingly. "He's not supposed to save the world," said Zedric, finally.

"No," the Doctor agreed. "The poor bastard's supposed to finish it off."

"Oh," she whispered in a tiny voice. "Why?"

"Varying accounts, again," said the Doctor, rolling his eyes. "You know, does it because it's got to be done, or because he wants to, or because he/she/it goes mad. Or because we've got it coming. Rumor is that the Black Scrolls tell exactly what will and could happen, but those things have been lost for ages and no one would look at them now if they had to do."

"This isn't any different from Earth, you know," said Rose. "You lot are supposed to be superior, but you lock up information too."

"It exists in corrupted form, but it doesn't make sense." The Doctor shrugged and then, obviously quoting, said, "_One will begin and four will end and eight will stop the war. Nine will die to save all time and ten will close the doors. Twelve will seek a martyr's death preserving what is ours. Thirteen live forever then, victim of his powers._"

"Are you sure you have your tenses right?" asked Zedric. "That thing was already a bit of Old High Gallifreyan poetry to begin with; are you sure your translation's correct?"

The Doctor sighed. "How can I be? Thirteen what? Nine what? What sort of powers? _Whose_ powers? I don't get it and no one else does either." He shook his head in sheer aggravation. "It doesn't matter, Rose, really. All you really wanted to know we covered a while back, but we tend to get a bit sidetracked when we start comparing notes. Sorry."

She smiled at his obviously disturbed expression and took his hand. "C'mon, let's just go have a pizza or something and forget all about it."

He grinned. "Coming, Rho?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

* * *

"I feel sorry for the kid, though," Rose commented over the pizza. Zedric and the Doctor were currently poking at it with their forks as if it would bite them back. "I mean, it would be hard to destroy the world, even if you wanted to."

"I couldn't do it," the Doctor said. "I haven't the foggiest how any Time Lord could. Article Seven forbids genocide, but the idea of it - our people or anyone else's - just sort of makes me sick." He lifted a piece of the pizza at last and slid it onto his plate, where he proceeded to neatly pick it apart with his fork. Zedric apparently still hadn't decided what to make of the straw in his drink.

Rose nibbled at her slice and closed her eyes, savoring the flavors and the hot, gooey cheese. She pulled the slice away and was rewarded with a long string of mozzarella connecting the slice to her mouth. She grinned happily and looked up as the bell at the door rang.

A man entered and stopped dead, his eyes connecting with hers, possibly by accident. Recognition charged through her, but she'd never lain eyes on the tall, leather-clad bloke (or his gorgeous, leather-clad friend) in her life. She blinked in confusion. The Doctor's head shot up and his eyes narrowed at the man in the doorway, who had turned stark white in the short interval between him entering and Rose spotting him.

"Oh, hell no," he said, in a very Northern accent. He and his friend grabbed hold of a third person who Rose couldn't see at all (but this person was much smaller) and they all exited faster than they had entered.

"This is getting out of hand," said Zedric as soon as the door closed. "What's happening, Doctor?"

"Paradox upon paradox," he said grimly. "I've no idea. You saw that, didn't you?"

"I might - just might - have seen more than you did," said Zedric carefully.

Rose just sat very still, watching them like a cat at a tennis match as they traded back and forth. She was confused, more confused than she had been in her entire life, even finding out she already had a wedding planned for her, and she was starting to feel like a very small, very ignorant child.

"I didn't check the others, if that's what you're suggesting," said the Doctor. "Why, were their time traces interesting?"

"Very," said Zedric. "But you're already in this up to your ears - those ears don't suit you, by the way - so I don't think I should say more."

"I can't understand how this can possibly be happening. This shouldn't be happening."

"No, it shouldn't. What are you going to do?"

The Doctor pushed his hair back and sighed heavily. "I'll have to see if I can run down the source is all. Tomorrow morning, first thing, I think."

"Then I suggest only one thing. Keep Rose with you."

"I don't want her hurt," the Doctor shot back angrily.

"She's part of this, somehow, Doctor. Take my word for it."

He made a frustrated, choking noise, not really a scoff, more a bit of a growl. Zedric backed up from the table, his hands in the air in a placating gesture. The Doctor slumped to the table, then, looking both enraged and defeated.

Rose had no idea what had just happened, but whatever it was, it was obvious that the Doctor didn't like it one bit. She offered him her hand, slowly, but he took more than that. In one impossibly fast blur of motion, he was on his feet and at her side. His hands shot into her hair and his lips covered hers with an urgency she would never have thought he had in him. There was nothing gentle in his kiss. It was fierce and frightened and demanding and she melted into it, trembling with alarm and desire at once.

"And on that note," she vaguely heard Zedric say, "I think I'll get the check."

He also apparently had the pizza boxed. When they broke off from the long, impassioned embrace, they got a round of applause from the restaurant around them, most of a pizza to go, and a little note from Zedric. It was on a piece of paper inside a brown leather wallet thing. All it said, in words that appeared as they looked at them, was, "Look what I found. I'd keep it if I were you."

* * *

Rose felt again that strange tingle prickling up the back of her spine, but she didn't have time to concentrate on that, or on much of anything, really. She lost her shirt buttons in the elevator, he lost his in the hallway and, by the time they fell through the door of their room, they had scandalized quite a few people with quick glimpses of two half-dressed teenagers groping each other in public. The Doctor kicked the door closed behind them and pounced on her.

Several hours passed before they made it to bed, but no one could say they hadn't tried.


	19. Chapter 19

_**Zedric of House Arpel Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, you don't own Doctor Who. Can we be quits on the matter? No? All right. Evidence to point one is simply that I love him, but wouldn't have him as a gift; I mean, seriously, he's a LOT of trouble, like you wouldn't believe. Evidence on point two is simply that fan-fiction writers are neither requested nor paid to work with the toys they play with. As long as you return him in the condition you borrowed him in, no one particularly minds, but Koschei or Rose or both of them are apt to come after you if you damage him. No idea which is worse. You've been warned.**_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for April! The new set will run through the end of April. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

A/N: An important fact was pointed out to me regarding the last chapter. Thanks, folks! Answer: I do not subscribe to the "Lungbarrow" hypothesis for a huge variety of very good reasons, the absolute least of which is that "Lungbarrow" is such an utterly TACKY name and something no one as beautiful as the Doctor should ever have attached to him. There's more, lots more, and if you'd like a copy of the rant/treatise, please feel free to let me know. So that may stop a few gaps or clear up a plot hole that may have worried people. I accept the shows as canon. I don't use the books unless I need them or they really work. Big Finish audio is outside of my range. Thanks for the patience, everyone, this should have been at the top of eighteen instead.

* * *

**Chapter 19: Looking for Trouble**

Rose woke to the sounds of the Doctor swearing fluently at a small, beeping box in his hand. "What're you doing?" she grumbled.

"Trying to run down the source of the paradox." He groaned in frustration. "Breakfast's on the table; we need to get going quickly."

"Aren't you having any luck?" She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, wincing as her back popped when she stretched.

"No." He sighed. "There's a dirty great hole in the fabric of space and time running right through the middle of the city, so I'm getting false positives from it. There's something sitting on top of that hole that's giving the instrument absolute fits, even though it's moving around. There's multiple time tracks from what looks to the instrument to be the exact same time machine. There's another, weaker time machine, which appears to be broken. There's a distortion out in the countryside that could be our source. There's a temporal anomaly that, as close as I can map it, is sitting in on classes at the local Uni. There're at least two Blinovitch limitation violations running around. And this thing's so sensitive, the time traces around you are setting it off."

He wandered out into the kitchenette area and came back with a cup of tea and a decided frown. He gave her the tea, and the frown as well for good measure. "I'll reset the parameters to exclude you, but I've still got forty other first causes to look at."

She sipped at the tea. "Unless I am the first cause?" she suggested, borrowing his phrase without really understanding what it meant.

"You can't be. You can't control time on that level." He shook his head. "I should probably say 'yet'. Time loves you like I do, and that's saying something."

"We're getting married tomorrow," she reminded him, in an attempt to cheer him up.

"Which is another temporal anomaly," he said. "As is this slightly psychic paper Zedric found. It seems to have come from the future."

"Slightly psychic?" she asked.

He handed over the little wallet they'd gotten last night. She opened it up and read, "I'd complain about the claw marks on my back, too, but I'm actually rather proud of them."

She blushed crimson and handed the paper back to him. He flipped it open, read whatever it might say and grinned at her. "Oh you will, will you?" he said.

She sputtered into her tea. "What did it say?" she demanded.

"Not telling," he replied, smirking. He leaned over and dropped a quick kiss on her cheek. "Hurry and get ready, love. We'll start with the farthest point and work our way back in."

She finished her tea quickly and then stood to head into the loo for a shower. He hurried her along with a sparkling, broad grin and a quick swat to her bare backside.

* * *

"What was that last night, anyway?" she asked as they walked hand in hand out to a bus stop.

His smile was haughty and yet flirtatious. "You didn't seem to mind it at the time."

"I still don't mind," she admitted, stopping a few feet from the bus stop and reaching up to cup his face. She wanted to keep this conversation very private. "I'm just curious."

He patted her hand, then looked at her sheepishly, his fair cheeks quite pink. "I'm afraid to lose you," he confessed softly. "I just... I want to deepen the link between us, open it up all the way. Sex distracts me."

She blushed. "My instincts say sex does deepen our relationship."

"Yes, but my mind and my instincts work differently from yours, remember?" He sighed and tossed his head to get his hair out of his face. "I will deepen the mental link eventually. I won't be able to resist it."

"I want you to, though," she said. "I know I was scared at first, but having you there, knowing what you're feeling and thinking... I love it."

He nodded. "I'm supposed to wait 'til we're partnered... married. It's the ultimate intimacy, and it'll bind us together forever. Even if someone or something separated us, I'd still be drawn to you, spend my whole life looking for you. Might do that anyway, even now, actually. And once I'd found you, it wouldn't half kill me to let you go."

"You won't have to. Nothing's going to come between us, Doctor."

"I... Just be careful today, Rose. You can be hurt and you can die, and I really don't think I could handle that."

The bus they needed arrived so they got on board, still holding hands, and settled in the very back away from people. She laid her head on his shoulder and stroked his hair back from his face.

"You have to be careful, too," she said. "I know you all said you're nigh indestructible, but you could die, too, Doctor, and I won't have it."

"Yes, but we have..." He swallowed hard. The link let her know that he was nervous, more afraid than he had ever been in his life.

"What is it?" she asked. "Tell me, let me help."

He swore softly. "This is hard to talk about in this sort of way. It's a bit taboo, you see."

She carefully showed him a picture of himself from her memory. She loved it, but it wasn't exactly his Time Lord dignity (he didn't have any in that picture) she saw in it. "And there's more than that," she reminded him sternly.

He chuckled nervously. "All right, you have a point there." He sighed. "Time Lords have a way of... cheating death."

Excitement surged through her. He could take whatever mad risk he was going to have to take, and he would still survive. "How?" she whispered.

"Look, I can tell you that I'll never age. You'd have to believe me, because you'll hardly ever see me do it. I might - just might - put on the equivalent of about twenty years in the rest of your life. Depending on what Gallifreyan genetic science can make of a human body, you may see me go grey."

Oh, that hurt. She knew it, as a fact, intellectually, but to have him spell it out... "You're stalling," she said, coldly.

"I am..." he began hotly. She glowered at him fiercely. "I'm stalling," he admitted, shifting his hand through his hair again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you..."

"I told you before," she reminded him. "You know what buttons to press. Just tell me. I think I have a right."

"You do," he agreed. "But I should have almost three hundred years before it happens the first time. Still, I've no idea what we're going into, so it's best... yes, all right." He sighed deeply and put his hand in the small of her back, more drawing comfort from her than giving it to her, but she felt better all the same. "We don't die. We... change. It's called regeneration."

"So you... what, come back?"

"Yes, in a way. It's that energy thing you were talking about last night. We die, but then the strands phase free and reform into a new person."

She stared at him, aghast, her mind all awhirl with confusion and fear. What would that mean?

"See, this is what I was afraid of," he said. "I'm sure you'll never have to see it." He was panicking now, his voice and his mind both urgent and desperate. "Please, Rose, I'll do everything I can not..."

"Wait," she said softly, and put her hand over his.

He clutched her hand tight, looking deep into her eyes, while his voice in her head begged, over and over, _"Don't leave me, please don't leave me..."_

She calmed herself and stilled. This was absolutely terrifying, but somehow not for the reasons he thought. He just assumed that it was too alien, too weird, for her to handle. "It isn't that! I'm not going to leave you, you ridiculous alien. I love you."

He whimpered softly and caught her lips in a short, tender, lonesome kiss, one that conveyed all sorts of fears and sorrows. Here he was, brilliant beyond the ability to measure it, admired and respected by his friends and classmates, physically as beautiful as a sculpture of masculine perfection, and he was frightened of the rejection of one little human girl.

She brushed the tears from her cheeks. Whatever she had done, if she had ever done anything, to deserve someone like him in her life... She shook her head. "It's just... if you turn into a new person... well... I mean, will you..."

"What? Rose, what is it? Please..."

"Will you still love me?" she whispered.

He slumped back in his seat, and his relief washed over her mind, heady, sweet, and intoxicating. "Always, Rose, always."

Now, her own relief joined with his.

"Things that are fundamental - like moral values or the way you feel about a person, that doesn't change. The things you know remain the same. You may express them differently, but they're still there. From what I understand - and I can't talk from experience, because I've never done it - but from what I understand, it's personality changes mostly - superficial things. Lord Borusa actually has regenerated, come to think of it, and I knew him before. About the only difference in this body and his previous is that now he's inclined to coin clever little phrases." The Doctor tilted his head and, in a perfect imitation of a grave, serene, older voice, said, "'There is nothing quite so useless as a lock with a voice print.'" He grinned and shifted back to his own voice. "All apropos to nothing, you understand. We're neither talking about locks nor voices, when he does this. No idea why."

She smiled. "So you'll look different and maybe act a little different..."

"Well, you have to understand, on Gallifrey, this is all very controlled. Sort of like popping round the barber's for a trim. You can see the potentials - like styles in those magazines you look at - even kind of try them on - a quick twitch of a couple threads and you can get an idea what you'll feel like. Once you decide... well, I dunno, no one ever talks about it. But if you end up doing it the hard way, it's completely different."

"The hard way?"

"Sudden violent death. No preparation, you end up, I understand, with quite a bit of pot luck." He grinned and wiggled his eye brows at her. "Would you still kiss me, Rose Tyler, if I came back looking like your grandfather?"

She thought about it. "I'd probably get arrested," she hedged, not entirely sure that she wouldn't. If he was alive, if he was still her Doctor, she might kiss him if he came back as a hedgehog. "Why, is that likely?"

"I told you they stay old most of their lives. But no, if I regenerated around you, my instincts would set the parameters around you, the way you are, your preferences, your needs. So I'd be close to your age, still, and still be fond of holding hands. I might pick up one or two of your features I'm fond of. I might have blond hair, for example, or freckles." He laughed lightly. "I'd probably end up even more hopelessly romantic than I already am."

"Oh, wow, that is saying something," she replied sarcastically. "I'd lose my buttons AND my bra."

"Are you saying I'm not romantic?" he demanded, grinning all the while and looking very much like he was plotting to tickle her.

She snorted. "I'm saying you're changing the subject. We'll talk about our mad courtship later. To our grandchildren."

"Yeah, I guess that will be one for the future, won't it? 'So, then I taught him to dance, and in exchange, he told me he was a century old alien from outer space. Wasn't that sweet?'" His voice imitation of her was a bit high pitched, but otherwise remarkable.

She giggled into his shoulder. "You're impossible," she said.

"Nothing is impossible," he told her. "Not even impossible things, so don't let anyone ever tell you that something is." He thought about it. "Not even me."

"Why, are you likely to say that?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking of telling you that these grandchildren would likely be Zedric's because, like I told you before, most Time Lords are sterile."

"Not Koschei's?"

"He won't partner with anyone," the Doctor said sadly. Then, he smiled again and shook his head. "Unless he and Ushas bump their heads or something, then I suppose. May Rassilon spare the Universe."

She shook her head. "Zedric didn't strike me as the marrying kind - looks a right bit of a flirt."

"He'll stop lusting after aliens and adventures eventually, settle down with someone his House selects and generate a couple of cute little Time sprogs." The Doctor shrugged. "And we can corrupt them and spoil them outrageously and then send them home. It'll be fun."

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed and settled down to wait for the end of the bus ride.

* * *

As they climbed off the bus, the Doctor carefully steered her clear of a pair of gentlemen wearing velvet. One had a red smoking jacket, the other a green frock coat. They looked like they'd just come from the theater - the costume department, to be specific - and were apparently arguing over the uses of an opera cape (which they older one was wearing).

"The young one was a bit of alright," she told the Doctor as they walked away.

He rolled his eyes. "I should hope you'd think so, anyway," he said morosely.

"The older one, too, then," she teased, still trying to place who he reminded her of. "If that's your sort of thing."

He gave her look that was brim full of love and exasperation, so tender and so possessive that she hardly knew what to make of it. When he took her hand, the thoughts that skittered through her head were all about love and eternity and _'Maybe she'll always want me...'_ She leaned into him just to let him know she would.

They set off into the Welch countryside, making for something that looked like it might have once been a place but was now just a dilapidated ruin. "Who are all these people, Doctor?"

He sighed. "Temporal anomalies, Rose. People who can't exist and shouldn't be here."

"Some of them seem a bit familiar to me," she confessed, which fact she had been planning to keep to herself.

"They probably would." He pulled the little beeping box from his pocket and headed out toward the ruined old house. She would have thought he'd forgotten her completely, but his fingers caressed her hand at intervals to let her know he was with her.

"Hah," he said softly as the beeping increased in intensity. "Now let's see what we have here."


	20. Chapter 20

**_Theta Sigma Disclaimer: First of all, don't call me that. Ever. I'm the Doctor, the original you might say, and I expect I can be considered to own myself. The fan-fiction writer does not, but the story works for me, so far, so I think I'll hang out here and see what happens. It had better be good, and it had better not... oh, no, don't tell me, just get on with it!_**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

For those keeping score: How many Doctors have you counted now?

* * *

**Chapter 20: Action**

The house was in even worse shape than Rose had expected. It sat in the middle of a field of tall, swaying grass that looked like it had gone completely wild, not even a sheep to tend to it in decades. The paint had gone, cracked with age and weather, crumbled to dust and blown or washed away. The boards showed through, grey and dingy and eerie looking. The only entrance they could see from the front side was an equally grey door, off its hinges and jammed in place at an angle.

_"Not this way, I don't think,"_ said the Doctor's voice in her mind. _"Let's go around the back."_

There was a beautiful view as they scurried low up the hill, but they weren't here to look at misty Welch valleys, so she put it firmly from her mind. Instead, she concentrated on wishing they were invisible and continued her scramble, bent almost double, through the damp grass as it slapped at her face.

_"This is miserable," _she thought to the Doctor. She wasn't complaining though. She honestly felt like she hadn't really experienced much of anything until now, hunting up the answers to great mysteries with her husband-to-be close by her side.

He grinned again and nodded. _"May get worse. There's a storm moving in."_

So there was. She looked up at the dark, scudding clouds and had to stifle a laugh at the thought, _"It never rains, but it pours."_

They moved in virtual silence, hoping mostly to remain undiscovered. The Doctor had shut off his beeping box and was following something else, something she couldn't see. They were both hoping, really, that there was nothing much to see, maybe just a lost bit of technology that had turned up here by accident.

A scream that shattered the silence and cut off abruptly with a horrible gurgle laid all their hopes to rest. The Doctor jumped to his feet, racing toward the house, Rose following in his wake. She wondered if she was more frightened of what had caused the abbreviated scream or the way he charged heedlessly toward it. He was going to get himself killed.

_"I will not be widowed right before my wedding,"_ she thought fiercely and snatched up a good stout stick to use as a cudgel in case it helped.

They reached the back door, and it was completely gone, along with half the floor boards leading up to it. Stepping carefully, the Doctor sidled up to the frame and then, to her complete shock, rapped lightly on it with his knuckles. "Hello the house!" he announced.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Saying hello," he whispered back. "And stay down," he added, putting a hand to the top of her head to keep her from standing up.

A single, bright green energy bolt like the kind in movies sizzled through the silent air and impacted with the beaten old door frame. The dry wood exploded into fragments that showered into the ruined building and out toward them, directly where they had been standing.

Had been, because the Doctor had snatched her to him and ducked, rolling with her into the building and away from the path made by the splintered wood. Almost as soon as they landed, he had them up again, racing across the room to avoid various bright green shots that always hit about a half-foot behind her shoe.

_"Watch that floorboard," _he commanded, firmly and silently, as they dove behind the mouldering remains of what might have been a couch.

She nodded and stayed away from the indicated board - it seemed to glow in her vision now. She slumped against the back of the whatever and hoped they wouldn't get vermin.

"I'm the Doctor," her lover shouted to the room at large. "I can help you."

Another shot hit the wall above their heads.

"Ok," he muttered, "maybe not."

Something green and lurid and definitely not human stuck its head over the couch to peer at them, the gun looking thingee in front of its strange excuse for a face. It blinked three huge eyes at them, opened a mouth that looked all teeth, and let out a squeaky, rattling sigh.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "Time Lord," he said, grimly.

Rose had only a split second. She saw the thing tense and the Doctor flinch. She snatched up her cudgel and, not even daring to think about how hard she might be swinging, brought it crashing down on the thing's head.

It wobbled and then collapsed, toppling down onto the ground on the other side of the sofa with a second, resounding crash.

The Doctor heaved a sigh of relief and nodded at her. _"We only have a few minutes,"_ his voice murmured. _"The others will hear that and come to investigate."_

"What the hell are they?"

"Dryffidiads," he whispered, his voice sounding quite angry. "How could I have been so thick? There's a temporal distortion around here, of course something like this lot would turn up."

"Did I kill it?"

He shook his head. "Very difficult to kill, Dryffidiads. They're drawn to temporal energy, they're trying to discover time travel. Only problem is, they don't have a concept of real time. Everything is 'now' for them. As far as they're concerned, they exist outside of time."

"What, really?"

"No," he replied grimly. "They just have an impossibly bizarre world view. They think we move through time and they don't and they're trying to use time travel to become like... well, not like me, more like you. They're not trying to go backward or sideways. They're just trying to go forward. Don't even want a peek at the future, exactly. They think that normal time is the future. Hopeless."

"So what was that scream?"

"Probably one of their filthy experiments failing." He shifted his gaze around what they could see of the wrecked room. Off to their right was an old style fridge, tipped onto the floor. "Disgusting," he muttered and took her hand. "Come on."

They crouched low and crept across the floor, shimmied around the broken fridge, and found themselves in a tiled room that was probably once a kitchen of some sort. On a nearby counter, there were several small, dark blue cubes. The Doctor was grinning at them.

"What are they?" Rose asked.

"Power packs, for the breathing apparatus these things use. I can connect them - there's that storm coming - and these things will build up a static charge, draw the lightning."

"Do it, then."

"No," he replied, softly. "I can take up to two full gigawatts of electricity. You can't." He stuffed them into his pockets. "Let's go see what they're doing." He gestured toward a door further along the counter. It appeared to lead down to a set of stairs.

"Don't you know you're not s'posed to go into the enemy's lair?" she whispered.

"How else am I going to find out what they're up to?" he asked.

She grinned helplessly, took his hand, and made for the stairs.

* * *

At the bottom, they found themselves in a cellar that absolutely reeked. Rose wrinkled her nose in disgust, the Doctor took deep breaths through his mouth and held them as long as he could, which was an exceptionally long period of time. "Iron," he murmured. "Human blood. They have captives."

His eyes darted around suddenly and he snatched at her hand. "Duck," he whispered urgently and dropped through the shattered railings to the cellar floor.

She kept her head down for a long moment, relying almost entirely on their link to figure out what was happening. One of the aliens had wandered by, going through toward one of the two rooms that had been made in the cellar. As soon as he let her know the coast was clear, she scrambled down after him.

"Go that way," he ordered. "The humans they're keeping should be there. See if you can get them free."

"What are you going to do?"

"Try to talk to them. I'm a superior life form to them, they should listen to me."

"Like the one upstairs?" she demanded in a harsh, argumentative whisper.

"I have to try, Rose," he insisted.

She believed him. "All right, I'll do what I can."

He handed her a bit of metal piping from the floor and they separated. She made her way gingerly across the room, setting her feet carefully so as to make no noise. The Doctor's voice in her head seemed to be rehearsing something, just chattering, like the mental equivalent of nervous pacing. She found herself smiling tenderly at her thoughts of him.

She reached the open doorway of the distant room and ducked down beside it, peeking around it to check that it was unoccupied by aliens. What she saw made her feel sick, but it was a relief at the same time.

Three people were chained up together, crouched along the wall and surrounding a fourth, smaller person, a child. They all looked horribly dirty and weary. The two blokes had their eyes closed and the woman in the group looked like she might be on watch or something.

Their eyes met the instant Rose stepped through the doorway and she raised a finger to her lips as the woman flinched. She gestured at the other two and the woman twisted in her chains to wake them. One came to with a harsh yell and Rose's face drained of color, even as she felt the Doctor's mind reach out to brush against hers. She hit the floor, half expecting the aliens to come charging into the room.

It seemed, though, that yells from their captives were completely expected, because no aliens appeared. She heaved a sigh of relief and brushed back at the link with reassurance that seemed to help.

"Help us," the woman pleaded in a hoarse whimper.

Rose nodded and looked around for the keys, for a pry bar, for anything to get rid of the chain binding the group together. One of the two blokes seemed to catch on at last and took the bit of pipe from her. He wedged it into the bar on the lock. With gestured instructions, he and the other bloke started trying to pull the lock apart.

Rose, meanwhile, searched the room diligently for some means of escape. She didn't find anything there, but a quick, careful glance into the main area revealed an earthern ramp and a door in the top of the room. She kept watch, turning occasionally to check on the blokes, who had managed to get the lock badly twisted but not open yet.

Their lady companion had apparently had all she could take. She snatched the pipe with the lock on it and braced the pipe on the flag stones. The first bloke seemed to catch on, and wrenched the lock down so that it was caught at an angle between two other flag stones.

Rose went to help them. She and the one bloke held the lock while the other two used the pipe as a lever.

With an almighty pop and a loud rattle of chain, the lock at last gave way. Rose helped them pull the chain out of the manacles that bound them and picked up the child for them. "This way," she whispered. She brushed at the link to let the Doctor know she'd freed the prisoners so far.

He apparently decided to serve as a distraction, because she suddenly heard his voice in the quiet of the dank cellar.

"What's that?" asked the woman in a terrified whisper.

"My friend," she said, not sure why, but thinking it a good idea to conceal their true relationship. "He's distracting the aliens."

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," one of the blokes muttered.

"Shut it," she whispered harshly. "That door there should go up and you're going to have to make a run for it."

They looked at her like she was mad. She passed the kid to one of the men and looked at them scathingly. "Seriously, you have to run, or we'll all get caught."

"What about you?" the woman whispered.

"I have to stay with the Doctor," she replied, quietly but fiercely. "C'mon."

She led them across the cellar at a swift but careful speed. When they went up the ramp, the door was loose and everything, but the hinges creaked the second they touched it. "Scream," she commanded. "Cover the sound. They don't notice when one of you yells."

They now apparently thought her stupid as well as mad. "Do it!" she ordered, gesturing at the bloke who'd shouted before. Then, just as insurance, she stomped on his foot.

He let out a howl of pain and she shoved at the door above her with all her strength. "Go," she snapped. "Run, now!

The woman didn't need telling twice. She burst through the narrow crack Rose had managed to wedge the door into and paused, then charged off into the rising gale. The man with the child followed, and the last bloke turned to her. "They've taken my cousin, too. Is she all right?"

Rose rather doubted it. "I'm sorry, I don't know. But we'll try, yeah? Maybe we'll find her."

He nodded curtly. "I almost hope... the way she was screaming... I hope..."

She put a hand on his arm and shoved him up the ramp. It was only when the rescue was over that she realized the new problem. She had this door and it was getting heavier by the second, and if she tried to close it, the aliens would hear and come running, probably with their zapping guns blazing.

The Doctor's voice echoed harshly through the cellar, commanding and imperious, insisting that he be heard. She used it as a cover to drop the door carefully into place.

Grinning proudly to herself - they made a great team, her and her Doctor, Rose made her way across the room. She could just make out his slender shape leaning against the opposing door frame in the dim light of this hideous, reeking, dusty, disgusting pit.

The last thing she noticed, besides the eruption of sparks in her head, was that the aliens smelled rather a lot like Worcestershire sauce.


	21. Chapter 21

**_Ricky the Idiot Disclaimer: I don't WANT to own Doctor Who and neither should you! He is an alien thing and he snatched my girl right from under my nose while I was looking right at her. And just because I never noticed that she was more special than someone who should be greeted at the door with "kit off" doesn't mean I had that coming, so shut it!_**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

A/N: **_THIS IS A WARNING!!_**

This chapter may be pushing the rating just a little bit. If you are at all sensitive or are still subject to the adult conspiracy, you may wish to avoid the end of it.

* * *

**Chapter 21: The Storm**

"I'm a Time Lord. You're aware, I'm sure, that this means I can see the future."

Rose wanted to say something, anything, in response to this, but she couldn't move. Why couldn't she move?

_"My precious girl,"_ came the Doctor's thought in her head. _"Be still, be silent. I'll get you out of there."_

He continued talking. She kept her eyes closed and tried to figure out what had happened. Where ever she was, the room stank of chemicals and that sauce smell she'd noticed earlier. It was also unbelievably cold.

"There is no future," she heard one alien say. Weird. They hadn't been talking in English before this, and now they were? "There is now and not now. Time Lords see not now."

"Fine. I see the not now. And, in the not now, I am punching you in the face. This isn't something that's happening now, right?"

"You are not punching anyone, Time Lord. You are standing still as Time Lords do. You move at will through time and will not move."

"Watch me," he snapped.

Whatever happened next involved quite a lot of noise from the aliens. It also apparently caused the Doctor a small amount of pain. She used the distraction to try to place what was happening. She realized that she had straps on her wrists and that she was lying flat on what felt like a cold metal table. Her eyes flew open and she struggled. The Doctor landed awkwardly next to her, leaning heavily on the table. One bright blue eye winked at her and he wrenched the restraint loose on her left wrist. She held still again, encouraged by his strength, and watched silently.

"That did not happen in the now," he continued. "It happened in the not now. I need to know what happened to you in the not now to get you here. Tell me."

"We are coming through the hole. We are finding this place and these moving things and we are watching them. They are moving through the not now. They have time travel. We are studying why."

"You are ignoring the basic facts of this situation! In the not now, some of them will come for you and you will be destroyed. Let me help you. Let me get you home."

"We are not going home. We are staying here. They have time travel. We will take it for ourselves."

"They can't give it to you," he snapped. "They can't. It's just something that happens for them."

Rose watched him with her eyes only open a crack as he moved between her and the three aliens who towered over him. As soon as she was sure he blocked their view, she reached her hand over and tugged the other restraint loose. She brushed his mind to let him know, and waited, feigning unconsciousness, while the aliens seemed to debate amongst themselves.

"If they are not giving us their time travel, they are dying," one of the aliens said.

"No, they are not dying," the Doctor replied insistently. "There are many of them and few of you. You are dying."

"We are using the detonator," countered the alien. "They are dying."

Her blood ran cold.

"No!" he shouted. He breathed slowly and sharply, then spoke again, calmly. "There's no call for this. Let me help you."

"You can give us time travel," said another alien. Rose knew it was a different one because its voice was harder, stronger, colder. "You are bringing the Time Spill. You can bring us time."

"I cannot and you know it. Time Lords have tried to give you time before... in the not now... and it won't work for you."

"You are different. The Time Spill is coming to you, from you. You are giving us time travel, or..."

"Or what?" he demanded.

"Or this one is dying."

"No!!" he cried out, anguish plain in his voice and in his thoughts. "I can't give you time. You won't understand! All you believe is now. Even if I give it to you, you won't believe me!!"

"Then the pink and yellow one is dying."

The aliens all screamed at once. The Doctor's hand clamped down on hers and she let him pull her from the table.

She got a brief glimpse of filth and blood and equipment that looked like it had escaped from the set of a sci-fii horror film. The aliens were all shaking and screaming, as sparks shot from the silver pieces at their necks. Rose almost froze, but the Doctor had her hand and then her arm in a tight grip, pulling her along with him almost as fast as she could move. She felt stiff and weird but her head didn't hurt at all like she thought it should.

"Run!" he shouted as soon as she had her feet steady under her. They stumbled together through the main room, tripping and skidding but never falling and never, ever letting go. The Doctor put up his free hand as they reached the ramp and the outside cellar doors burst open. They charged through them. Rose lost her footing and almost tumbled in the damp grass, but the Doctor's grip kept her upright.

"Keep going," he commanded. "We've got to get away from here!"

The wind was strong enough to almost knock her to her knees. The storm that had been brewing all morning had arrived. The early afternoon sky was as dark as twilight, darker for the absence of stars. Instead, it was punctuated by great sheets of bright lightning that swept over the clouds, followed almost immediately by the near-deafening roll of thunder.

She didn't dare try to go down the hillside. One misstep, and it would be so easy in the rising dark, the wind, and the panic, and she would lose her footing and fall, tumbling helplessly until she hit the bottom. The Doctor apparently agreed with her, because he stopped and looked around desperately for some sign of shelter or help.

A man in a billowing great coat stood at the base of the hill, watching them and watching the house. Rose couldn't even make out his face at this distance. He pointed off to the left. "You'll be safe there," he shouted, but it sounded like a whisper against the meteorological pyrotechnics.

The Doctor nodded and turned Rose into the open field. The wind churned the grass into whips that slapped against her legs, soaking her jeans through and the rain hadn't even started yet.

They found a wash, where the run off must have once cut down the hill. Now, it was covered in a thick layer of moss and some kind of fern. "This should do," the Doctor said, and dropped over the side, reaching up to help her down after him.

She looked into his eyes as he gripped her waist and brought her gently to the ground. His pupils were huge, his irises indigo against them. The storm's fury was echoed there, reflections of the lightning looking completely natural in the dark depths.

He turned away, back toward the house. She turned, too, just in time to see the sky split in two by an enormous fork of light. It cut through the air, then through dry wood, exploding everything in its path with horrendous noise. She threw her hands up over her ears and watched as the house burst into flame like so much dry kindling.

Thunder answered the lightning's roar, wreaking havoc through the air with force enough to shatter the clouds. The rain came then, pounding like hail and almost as cold.

The Doctor flung his arms around her and pulled her down to the floor of the wash, covering her with his body. Then, with a noise that easily out-stripped even the thunder, the remains of the house on the hill exploded.

The ground shook and the air shook, the Time Lord above her shook, and she herself practically vibrated with cold and fear and the indomitable ecstasy of purely being alive. He looked at her, his eyes desperately searching her for any trace of damage.

What happened next was at once inexplicable and perfectly normal, a very bad idea and a positively brilliant one. She moved and he moved and his lips crashed down over hers, a searing, starving, possessive kiss. She fought back, not to break free, but just to match his blazing intensity.

She wasn't cold anymore, and she wasn't afraid. He was beautiful and hers and they were safe and together and so very, very alive. She wrenched his shirt free from his trousers, breaking the kiss to attack his throat with her lips, while one of his hands cupped her head. The other ventured to the hem of her shirt and tugged at it impatiently.

She drew back and inhaled sharply, snatching at his clothes and her own. It took both of them to get her out of her drenched jeans and she decided she wouldn't think about getting them back on later for awhile. He pulled her into a sitting position and threw his coat down where she could recline on it, their shirts balled up to pillow her head.

They were naked in the heart of the storm, water coming down over them in a steady downpour. The air smelled of fresh churned earth and sweet living plants. Beyond that was the charred reek of disaster and above it all was the fragrance of the storm itself, the cold, pure scent of fresh rain and saline, the indescribable smell of a sky blasted clean by wind and fire and water.

Finally, most immediately, there was that all-encompassing aroma of arousal, the demanding, compelling, enamoring human scent of "oh-god-we-didn't-die-let's-procreate".

She looked up at the Doctor in shock and wonder. That last was not, could not have been her thought. His eyes were still huge and blazing, his face strained almost to the breaking point. She could feel it, his want, his need, his longing, not just for her body but for her, for everything about her. He nudged at her in more than one way, desperately fighting himself on both fronts, because neither was right under the circumstances.

Rose loved him, more for fighting than for wanting, but the wanting was beautiful, too. "Do it," she whispered, monumental decisions made in those two short syllables, her life forever, inextricably bound to his.

He studied her face, and then nodded. One hand cupped her cheek, the other splayed on her bare hip. He eased into her, mind and body, and she cried out in ecstasy that felt, not merely doubled, but quadrupled by the connection. Her legs went up around his waist by instinct, but the more pressing joy was what he was doing in her head.

"My Rose," came the whisper, but she thought his words may have come from her lips.

"My Doctor," she replied, or had him reply for her, perhaps.

All the doors in her mind flew open at once. All the doors in his did the same, all except one, which was marked "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" so she knew it was best left alone.

"I'm not allowed to open it," he told her, a fact.

She kissed him, drawing him closer in every possible way. He was so cold and she was burning around him and within him, a flame that would always be the torch he used to light his way. They belonged together. She was created for him.

_She created herself for him._

He gently nudged one of her doors closed. "Not that one," he whispered. "We're not ready."

He did something, something that a human being could not possibly do with that and she arched into him, demanding to experience it again. He complied, his face all serious and concentrated, but his eyes sparkling like diamonds with the knowledge that she accepted and wanted everything about him. She didn't want him to be human; she just wanted him to be her Doctor.

The wind picked up again. The rhythm of their bodies and their minds rose to echo it, copy it, supplant it. He gazed down at her and at last she could see what he saw, a precious creature of starlight and wonder, caressed in gold that danced for her every breath.

She blinked to clear her gaze of the unearthly mirror, looked up at him, instead, and was blown apart by what she saw. He was the storm itself, wore the clouds like silken wings, the last of the lightning a halo for his head. His eyes were the color of the sky and his voice as he cried out was the thunder itself.

The storm broke over her and broke through her, inside her body and inside her mind, and she held him closer still, cherishing him, loving him, surrendering to him and accepting his surrender in return.


	22. Chapter 22

_**Eight Disclaimer: I am the Doctor! I am me, I own me! Brilliant, hum? Oh, excuse me, would you like a jelly baby? They're quite tasty, I assure you. Anyway, as I was saying, I don't belong to this fan-fiction writer. Sorry about that. Hum? What? Oh, fine, I'll just fop enthusiastically back into my corner now, then. Have fun with the story, but remember to put the little one back where you got him, or you'll never get Doctors in velvet, which would be a very great tragedy, don't you agree?**_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**Chapter 22: Time Spill**

It was some time later, after the rain had nearly stopped, that the magnitude of the situation rolled over the Doctor and he turned, cradling Rose tight and burying his face in her dripping hair.

Icy cold tears mingled with the rain. "I'm sorry," Rose whispered, "I'm so sorry."

"I killed them, Rose," he wailed hoarsely, the cry ripped from his chest. "I... me... I... I killed them, I murdered them!"

"No," she said, firmly, letting him clutch her tighter, even though he was almost hurting her arm. Her heart was breaking for him, for his pain, for the loss of the innocence and arrogant self-assurance. He'd hoped, thought, believed he could do something, save them, save all those people. He'd wanted to, to do the right, responsible, better thing. He'd wanted to help, to make things better, to fix things.

They'd had a bomb in there, though, big enough to blow a hole in Cardiff. Apparently, from what the Doctor knew, blowing a hole in Cardiff particularly was a worse thing than usual because of that Rift that ran through it. Set at the right point, physical damage could conceivably jar something loose that no one wanted to see.

"You saved everyone else," she reminded him, had to remind him, because he really needed to remember that right now. "You saved me."

His mind tugged her inside - God, the power, the vastness - and clutched at her just as desperately as his arms. "I tried to save them," he whispered. "I tried to stop them. They couldn't understand. Nothing can make them understand."

"I know," she agreed. "But you tried. You tried so hard." She hardly knew what to say about all this. His mind made it plain that by law he would have had every right to eject them into space without suits for threatening her. It also made it clear that for the deaths of four innocents on a Level-5 planet, which Earth apparently was, they could have been tried as war criminals. Being blown up by the Doctor might have been kinder than what could have happened if they'd been convicted.

"It's just... I never thought I could do something like that... I never wanted to think... I just wanted to stop them."

"Yes," she told him, agreed with him, firmly, letting him know in every way she could that her faith in him had not waned in the slightest. "You saved a lot of lives today. Thank you."

He forced a smile as he looked at her now, brushing the tears away rapidly. "I wish there had been another way."

"Me, too," she agreed and they decided it was best to let it go from here.

He stood up and looked toward where the house had once stood. The man in the great coat from earlier was directing several people with stretchers and body bags. Rose stayed down, searching for her bra in the pile of sodden clothes. It didn't matter. She could see exactly what the Doctor saw, interpret it on her own or use his interpretation if she preferred. At the moment, she was looking forward to the lessons he promised in shutting out the awkward double vision, not because it felt uncomfortable, but simply because she didn't want to see it.

His eyes narrowed and... oh, wow, he had zoom lenses in there... focused closely on the body being brought up from the cellar, severed time line floating away from it even now. "Such lost potential," he murmured.

It was the body of another child.

Rose winced and shut her eyes. He flashed away from the scene and focused solely on her. "Sick, sick, murdering..." she muttered, so angry at the aliens that she didn't think she knew enough swear words to describe them. She looked up at him, desperate that he understand.

The Doctor nodded to her, his eyes stormy again, with grim determination this time. "Never again," he said.

She knew, now, would always know, what he meant. Never again would he shed tears for killers, no matter how much it hurt. And probably never again would he be around to watch the clean-up.

* * *

They took a cab back to the hotel. It was waiting for them and everything, so it seemed easiest. They were disgustingly dirty and tired and it was almost three in the afternoon, so they were both quite peckish as well.

The Doctor explained that he'd be fine if he just had a banana.

"What is it with you and bananas, anyway?" Rose demanded.

He was embarrassed. She stared at him, feeling the hot wave of his blush crossing her own face, and tried to make sense of this strange sharing of emotions, and also what the deal was.

"We... well, we sort of... we invented them," he admitted.

"We?" she asked, just for clarification.

"The class, for a project. Well, more for a project in protest. It's just... well, food tablets are nasty."

The remembered flavor, like stale ice, skittered across her tongue and she winced. "Disgusting," she agreed, then grinned. "All I ever did was talk the choir into going on strike."

"Why?"

"No music, no decent instruments, even the pitch pipe was out of tune, and the band got new uniforms at about a hundred quid a pop. Would have been more creative to, I dunno..." She smirked at him. "Invent the piano, go back in time, and make sure it became something no civilized building on the planet was ever without."

"Hey, Time Lord school pranks always use time travel."

"And seeding a thousand planets with your invention?" she asked.

He grinned proudly. "Oh, yeah."

* * *

Unfortunately for them, they were in a lot of trouble, but didn't know it until they stepped into the lobby of the hotel. Jackie Tyler's voice echoed across the room like a proclamation of doom.

"Where were you!?"

"Oops," Rose said. She'd told her mum where she was going, yesterday, but completely forgot today. So, she was probably going to get them both murdered.

"Oops, young lady? Is that all you can say?!" Jackie strode up to the pair of them, her arms folded across her chest, looking quite as fierce as a basilisk. "You look like you've been rolling in the mud! And you." She jabbed a finger into the Doctor's chest. Rose winced. "I expected better behavior out of you, Doctor. What were you thinking?"

He sighed. "We got an opportunity to go on a hike. It was a spur of the moment thing, Jackie. I'm sorry, I didn't think."

She glowered at him. "Smart as you are?" she snorted.

"Oh, I know," he agreed, trying for a charming smile. It didn't help.

"Upstairs, now, the pair of you. What did you do, fall in a mud pit?"

"We were caught in a storm," Rose protested, even as her mother's hand clamped firmly on her shoulder.

Jackie berated them all the way across the lobby... "Out of my mind with worry, just a couple of kids..." in the elevator... "Could have been kidnapped by terrorists, I know it's s'posed to be safe, but what if..." down the hall... "half-naked teenagers. It had better not have been you, Rose Tyler..." and into their room. "Sit."

They had no choice but to comply. "I want a shower, Mum, I'm a mess!!" Rose had to try to protest anyway.

"Shush," Jackie insisted. "Now, I've spoken to that charming young friend of yours, Mr. Arpel, and he asked me to let you know that he and the other young man - didn't catch his name - have seen two more of whatever it is you're looking for. They want you to hurry up."

"You met Zedric?" Rose asked. "Oh, god." The Doctor grinned at her, trying to refrain from laughing.

"He was very sweet," Jackie said. "I like this school of yours, Doctor, you all turn out such gentlemen... at least until you met my wretched daughter! She's been a bad influence on you, I swear."

"Thanks, Mum," Rose said sarcastically.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor agreed, leering at Rose quite suggestively. "Positively appalling."

"You love it," she countered, and thumped him on the arm.

"I do," he agreed. "I'd suggested introducing Zedric to you yesterday," he added to Jackie, "but I didn't get the chance. How did he recognize you?"

"Dunno. Walked right up to me, asked if I was Rose's sister."

"Easy mistake to make," the Doctor lied convincingly.

Jackie patted his cheek fondly. "Aren't you just a sweetheart." Then, she frowned. "Look, your friends seemed quite urgent. I can tell there was some sort of mischief going on. What ever you lot are up to, you're starting to worry me. And I'll bet you two haven't just been on a nature hike."

"Oh, but we have," Rose said. "We saw some very odd things, too, really. And got run off by a bloke in a military coat."

"I don't believe you, and you're not going anywhere until you tell me the truth, so spill!"

"Spill!" The Doctor's joyous exclamation was almost completely unexpected, even by Rose who could feel what he felt as it happened. "Oh, brilliant. Jackie Tyler, you are brilliant!" He snatched her hand, planted a firm kiss on it, then practically danced across the room, rifling through his coat pockets until he produced that little beeping box.

Temporal tracing module, she now knew. Huh. He adjusted it carefully. "Time Spill, remember, Rose?"

She grinned back at him and nodded.

"What if that's right?"

"What're you on about?" Jackie demanded.

"New song," Rose said by way of distraction. "Really weird, kinda funny lyrics." She sang a line from one of the Doctor's poems last night, to a dissonant tune with a punchy little beat.

"Oh, you clever girl," he breathed in admiration. "Oh, Rose Tyler, I love you."

She laughed aloud. "Love you, too," she said. Then she turned to her mum. "So we're gonna go and meet his friends - the other one's Koschei, by the way - and go to a club. Should play that song."

"I think you're mad, the pair of you," Jackie said, sounding more awed at the prospect than annoyed for some reason.

"We're also starving," the Doctor replied. "We're probably going to be out all night, Jackie. Might stay at Zedric's place instead of here. But we should be back in time for lunch tomorrow."

Should be, Rose thought. Their wedding was supposed to be at dawn for some unfathomable reason.

"Why don't we have lunch here in the restaurant?" the Doctor continued. "Howard, too, if he wants to join us."

This was as good a reason as any.

"All right," Jackie agreed finally. "And bring your friends, if they want to come, of course. I did like that boy."

They practically chased her out the door and then the Doctor rounded on Rose. "Cold pizza?" he offered.

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed.

"You want the shower first?" he offered.

She smirked. "Thought we'd go together," she said, sweetly. She wasn't even trying to hide the thoughts.

* * *

Once they'd gotten fed and into clean, dry clothes, the Doctor turned all his focus on to that little box of his. She couldn't follow half his thoughts, so he resorted to trying to explain.

"There are several mutually exclusive time lines all over lapping, right here, in Cardiff, right now. They can't exist simultaneously and some of them can't exist at all except here."

"What?" she asked.

He looked at her like she'd... well, dribbled on her shirt, actually. Bugger. "I'm not being stupid," she defended hotly. "But what it sounds like you're saying is that some of the stuff that's going on right now can't be going on."

"Exactly," he proclaimed, then sighed to see that he still hadn't got through to her. "All right. Think of a football field. Now, this field is always used to play football, except one month out of the year, when it's used as a cricket pitch. With me so far?"

"Yes."

"What's happening right now is that the field is being used to play football and cricket at the same time. Now, normally this would be impossible, but something's happened so that the football players and the cricket players are coexisting rather nicely. They shouldn't be able to do - can you bowl a sticky wicket with a bloke bouncing a ball off your head? No. But for some reason, just right now, it's working."

"OK," she agreed.

"Now, let's add the further complication of the three-person rule. The Blinovitch limitation effect, it's called. None of the blokes should be able to play football and cricket at the same time, but for some reason, a couple of them are playing football and cricket and also doing a rather exquisite ballet."

She giggled, picturing him and Koschei in pink, puffy tutus.

"Not us," he said, rolling his eyes. "Blinovitch limitation doesn't apply well to Time Lords. We have ways around it... I told you about regeneration. Multiple bodies means multiple time tracks, which means it is possible, however unlikely, for any number of incarnations of the same person to turn up without completely collapsing the Vortex. I was thinking more of... there's someone here who isn't a Time Lord who is or has been physically present in more than one time track..." He blinked at her. "Think of yourself as a baby."

"All right," she agreed.

"Now, you-as-a-baby could be here, with us in the room, if someone with a time machine were to pop back in time, pick up the baby, and bring it here. However, that would be risking the Blinovitch limitation. If you were to touch the baby, you'd be over the three person rule."

"But I'd still only be two people," she corrected, confused again.

"Not exactly," he said, pulling a hand through his hair and staring around, trying to figure out how to make it easy for her. He wanted to teach her these things, but it was so complex, this concept, that he wasn't sure he could find the right words. "You'd have effectively created a third person by touching the child. Put a massive strain on the continuum, massive burst of temporal energy, maybe even let something in if the Time Lords weren't monitoring."

"I don't see where the third person comes in."

"The third person is you - the new you, the you who had been touched by you. That baby had never been cuddled by Rose Tyler and Rose Tyler had never, as a baby, been held by Rose Tyler. But the instant of the touch, a third person exists, a Rose Tyler who _had_ been held by Rose Tyler. Do you understand?"

"No cuddling myself," she agreed, shaking her head.

"But here, in this time and place, for some reason, I have seen at least two manifestations of the same bloke."

"Really?" she demanded, astonished.

"Yep." He grinned and she could suddenly see the face of the bloke in the rain storm, the same as the bloke in the leather trousers, from yesterday.

"Oh," she said and shrugged. "Maybe they're twins."

He laughed and turned back to his box. "Never mind," he said. "I'm just saying that the temporal anomaly is probably either associated with him or me or the pair of us. So I'm going to back track my time line and look for the distortion along it. This place is so slam full of temporal anomalies, it's a wonder the Time Lords don't yank it out of its track to sterilize it. They may, too, if they become aware of it, and I'd rather they not have the provocation, especially if it's my fault." He twiddled with a few dials and hummed idly. "It will probably be somewhere where that fellow, whoever he is, crossed my path. Or I crossed his. Or, possibly, when."

"What'll we do when we find it?"

"Should be able to collapse the paradox field. Stitch up the traces around it and weave the fabric back together. I may need to pester Zedric and Koschei into helping me steal the capsule to do it - we're going to need massive temporal power, probably."

"You're going to steal a time machine?" she demanded.

He hadn't stopped grinning. "Isn't this just about where you came in at?"

She nodded. "Think it's fantastic," she said.

"And that's about where I came in at... although," he admitted, "think you had me with huge brown eyes and a shy smile."

"And you had me the day I was born," she replied tenderly.

His warmth enfolded her and he took her hand. They belonged together, had always belonged together, would always belong together. Best friends and partners and lovers, together, regardless, and time itself couldn't stand between them.

Joy surged through her. "Ah, ha!" he shouted. "Got it!"

They were out the door in less than a heart beat.


	23. Chapter 23

**_Five Disclaimer: Don't be an idiot! Of course the fan-fiction writer doesn't own Doctor Who. The very idea is preposterous. You're not really going to get very far in this world if you don't come to terms with a few simple facts. If you don't mind, I think I can safely say that the Doctor is owned by the Doctor. That would be me. Have a lovely day, I'm off to play some cricket. And don't even think about asking about the celery, there's a good chap._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

Spot-the-Doctor final tally should be in now. How many did you see?

* * *

**Chapter 23: The Anomaly Marks the Spot**

"Following this is like... I dunno... what happens if you give yo yos to a flock of flamingos."

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"Sorry, quoting," Rose apologized, watching the Doctor as he turned right, left, right again, and then walked determinedly back the way they came. "_Fantasia_," she said. "Remind me to show you those, you'll love them."

"_Dance of the Hours_," he mused, picking up the thought easily. "Sounds like a fascinating name for a piece of music, but I'm not sure what to make of ostriches in tutus. Or that bit about Camp Granada... Rose, what is all this in your head?"

"Sorry," she muttered.

He stopped and took a seat on a nearby bench, patting it to indicate that she should sit beside him. "Right," he began, "I can organize all this for you, set it up, put it away, and put in some barriers for you. But I'm not going to, so don't you dare apologize."

She frowned, then smiled. "Because you..."

"Because if I do, it might mess with you being you. Besides, if I wasn't trying to concentrate, it wouldn't be a problem. Your mind is..." he hunted for a word, then beamed at her and proclaimed, "adorable."

"I'll get you for that," she assured him.

"I'm looking forward to it," he answered cheekily. Then, his face stilled. "Right now, I need you to concentrate, too, for me, please."

"But it doesn't make any sense. You've been with me this whole time you were here and I know we haven't been anywhere near this place." She gestured at the large stadium behind them. "You said yourself you're supposed to follow your time line back, right? Why don't you start at the beginning, where you first left the capsule and work that way?"

"Rose Tyler, you are a genius," he announced and bounded to his feet. He snatched her hand and she followed him, trying for a more sedate pace. "Hold that thought," he commanded.

"Not a problem," she said, and pulled her eyes carefully to the streets in front of them instead of the way he looked with dark denim hugging his hips.

"You up for another hike, Miss Tyler?"

"A bit, I think."

"Good," he said. "He has it down on the waterfront at the moment. But before that, it was over there."

He pointed across at Bute Park, looking quiet, dark and cool, with the enormous castle towering above it. Night was beginning to fall and Cardiff was coming alive with lights and crowds and noise. This part of it, anyway, seemed to be more populated at night than during broad daylight.

"Well, come on then," she said and set off toward the park. "It's late and we'll probably get arrested. I suggest we call my mum if we do, as your tutor's apt to have me shot."

The Doctor flipped the funny paper at her. It now read, "Let these people go anywhere. Love, the Queen of England."

"I expect it'll have to look more official than that," she told him.

"I'm sure," he agreed. "But you get the general idea. If we run into anybody official except the bloke in the military coat, we'll use this. We run into him, he has some explaining to do." He didn't register to the Doctor as a Time Lord, Rose realized, but time was still all strange around him.

The park was clear and empty in the closing night. It struck Rose as unusual, and bothered the Doctor quite a lot. "It's as if we were expected," he said. "I don't like it."

Rose nodded warily, and clutched at his hand. In silent agreement, two minds moving as one, they walked slowly and carefully, keeping to shadows and any shelter they could find.

The temporal monitor was going mad, lights blinking and sparkling brightly, indicators off the scale. The Doctor had never seen such a thing in his life, not even on Gallifrey, near the Eye of Harmony. "The anomaly must be simply massive," he muttered. "It's a wonder it hasn't pulled a hole in the Vortex the size of Belgium."

They reached a copse of trees and then carefully picked their way through it. Finally, about thirty paces ahead, was where it began, the first place her Doctor had ever set foot on Earth. And there, as if marking that very place, was the anomaly.

Rose, who didn't know what she was seeing, gazed at the swirling, spiraling, seething light in wonder and awe. The Doctor stared at it, quaking in terror. Then, before he could even think about it, clearly register for Rose to know what it was, he folded up into a ball on the ground and began to retch.

His revulsion seared through her as she dropped to his side. "Don't look at it," he whimpered between convulsions. "Oh, precious Rose, don't look, don't see."

"What is it?" she demanded hoarsely.

Whatever it was, he couldn't stand it, couldn't bear to even be near it. Good thing he was so thin and short, then. She worked her hands under his arms and laboriously dragged him, heedless of his struggles, away from the light, back into the trees. As soon as they were out of sight of the light, Rose collapsed next to him, breathing hard and trying to get him to lie straight. She pillowed his head in her lap, and soothed his hair as he groaned.

"What is it, Doctor? Tell me, so I can help!"'

"It's anti-time," he moaned. "Anti-time... anentropic..."

"What?"

He groaned in pain and forced himself to sit up. "Oh, that is so disgusting," he muttered. "And where the hell did it come from?"

"Tell me what it is," she pleaded.

"It's not. It's more a sort of 'what it isn't.'" He dragged a hand through his hair. "You didn't... it... are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm not the one who's sick."

"Oh, right," he muttered sheepishly. "Not time sensitive." He frowned. "Yet," he added and checked that all those mad time strands swirling around her were still stable.

They weren't. They'd gone into paroxysms like fireworks, moving at erratic and alarming speeds in places, slowing to a near halt in others. The Doctor couldn't even begin to imagine how such a panoply of time traces could unravel at all and he couldn't tell for certain whether that was what Rose's were trying to do. Many of them, it seemed, were folding her closer, almost clutching her to keep her near them.

"Doctor, what's happening?" She shuddered and felt almost dizzy as the double vision resolved into an image of a her, only more beautiful and precious than she had ever imagined herself to be. He loved her so much, and it was so obvious when his thoughts were knocked around like nine-pins. He automatically searched her out, instinctively clung to her.

"That's the source of the paradox field. It's a ripple of anti-time. I can't imagine..."

"That like anti-matter? Explosive in the presence of matter?"

"Kind of, actually." He gave her a weak smile. "You're so clever. It's paradox generating in the presence of regular time. It's what's made our cricket pitch coincide with our football field. It's been contained," he assured her at her gasp of horror. "But it's causing a schism and someone has got to close it."

"How?"

"I don't know," he exclaimed. "I just can't..."

"Tell me about it, and we'll think of something, yeah?" She clutched his hand and shook it to reassure him. She was there and she was not going to let him go.

"Precious girl," he said, and reached up to stroke her hair. He took a deep breath and steadied himself with effort. This tiny ball of light was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen in his life, and he'd looked into the Untempered Schism on Gallifrey as a child. He'd seen... oh, the things he had seen... and he'd run, so far, would probably never stop, because all of that was coming and all of that was every where, like a storm that followed him home.

And this, this was worse.

"Sorry," he muttered and shoved shakily at the doors over his thoughts. "Entropy is the heat death of the Universe. It's like... the more you put things together, the more they keep falling apart. Understand?"

"With you, so far."

"Everything has its time and everything dies. That's the rules. Without it, the Universe couldn't exist. We'd be like the Dryffidians think they are - stuck, nothing ever happening. Time's like water in an entropic space - it's the source and the termination, the cause and the effect. It gives life and it takes it away. You can't survive without it, and it's worse for me. You need a gallon a day, and I live in it like a fish. That stuff - it's like the opposite of time. It's like if you saw water running up hill, it would make you ill, because you know gravity says it can't. Well, what I'm seeing in that thing is a ripple in time that is, quite literally, running backward, not like you're thinking, but revoltingly so."

She'd been thinking of scenes on the tele rewound. So that wasn't grotesque enough to cover what he saw, but to her it seemed kind of awful enough. "Alright. But is it some place that's... I dunno, bleeding through from somewhere else, or what?"

"No, it's not active. I mean, it's from some_when_ else. Like... remember your paradox and the energy I told you it would give off?"

"Yeah, I remember. No cuddling myself."

"Right. Well, that energy has to go somewhere. For some reason, instead of bleeding off or ripping a hole or something like that, this paradox, when it hit critical, bled back through time and emerged here - right here - and I don't. Get. It!"

"Ok, I think I'm with you. It's like you chuck a rock in water, and this thing is the back splash."

"Yes!" he cried, ecstatic. "Oh, Rose Tyler, you are the most fantastic human being ever! That's exactly it. Far in the future - oh, Rassilon only knows how far, a paradox closed. In your analogy, that paradox is the water and... oh..." Here he trailed off and swore instead, in jangling syllables and sibilant hisses, in French, in German, in languages she'd never imagined existed. Hints of meaning flickered at her, but he was exercising extreme edges of his vocabulary of profanity and he didn't look to be planning to stop any time soon.

She put her hands on his arms to give him a good shake. His mouth slammed shut over an obscene reference to people who kept sheep, and he gaped at her. Slowly, he got to his feet, staring at her in wonder and bewilderment. He looked back toward the light, then back at her, baffled and yet completely, horrifically aware of... something.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"I'm the rock," he answered. His voice broke. "The paradox is... or will be... or has always been... me."

"Will be," a strange, strong voice replied, and a man stepped out from somewhere, cloaked and hidden, and neither of them could see him.

Rose and the Doctor stared at each other, both of them filled with the nearly overwhelming desire to run. But they couldn't. This anomaly had to be shut down, and only a Time Lord could do it. Possibly, probably, only the Doctor could do it, and he wanted to face that thing as much as he wanted to return to Gallifrey alone. He rather thought leaving Rose would kill him.

"What are you?" the Doctor asked their visitor.

Rose felt her heart stutter as the man in the cloak just chuckled.


	24. Chapter 24

**_Ten Disclaimer: Hello! I'm the Doctor. I own the Doctor and, as the current incarnation, I think I can be said to own the Doctor rather more than these others who have been chattering and yammering at you for the rest of the story. I think, in fact, that I will own the Doctor for a long time to come, and it is nice, no, brilliant!, to own the Doctor and to be the Doctor. Fun, running, being the Doctor, oooh, and wearing trainers, that's good. Oh, and the sonic screwdriver, love that. And the suit, and it's fun to be the only Doctor since Four - oh, all right, since Seven - to have an official change of clothes. Mind, at least I didn't wear a cravat. Or velvet. Can you imagine velvet, with my hair? No? Neither can I. Where was I? Oh, right. Fan fiction writers. Fun job, no money, but hey, I haven't got a penny, so who am I to complain, yeah? But they don't own me, not even this one and her very interesting story about... um... my... my... my friend. Yes, my friend, Rose. Her name's Rose. She's... oh, she's magnificent. Not sure why she's with the little kid in this, but ok, whatever floats your boat, I suppose... Hum? Oh, I don't want to stop talking, do I have to? Ooooh. A BUTTON! A BIG colorful button! It even says it's to be pressed. Ooooh! I want to press the button, and you should too! Anyway, back to me... oh, look. Shiny..._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**Chapter 24: The Causal Nexus**

"Are all Time Lords rude?" asked the man in the cloak conversationally. "I thought it was just some of you, but now..."

"You answer my question first," the Doctor replied imperiously. Time Lords, after all, always took precedence, except, in the Doctor's opinion, for Rose. Whatever this bloke was up to, she wasn't safe and the Doctor, therefore, wasn't happy.

"Temper, temper," the man chided. "You need to calm down, kid, or we're not gonna get anywhere with this conversation."

The Doctor swore quietly. This time, the man in the cloak laughed uproariously.

"Stop it," Rose insisted, nervously. "Please... just tell us what you want."

She could tell the stranger was looking at her, just looking, but she had no idea how she knew it, since she couldn't even see his eyes. "Your wish is my command," he said, and he sounded so sincere, so utterly without guile or deception that she found herself completely confused. Her instincts told her that everything about him was a lie. Even if he identified himself, she was sure, he'd be lying. But this, this was true.

"Why don't we all sit down?" she suggested.

"All right," the bloke agreed, and immediately picked a patch of earth that was slightly higher than theirs. Rose rolled her eyes while the Doctor dropped to the ground, still quite defensive. She settled next to him and held onto his hand. He was a coiled spring, ready to jump at the slightest provocation, so she remained on guard as well.

He didn't seem to like the idea of not being able to see the man's eyes or hear his real voice. Despite the little bit that Rose could gather from the stranger's body language, the Doctor could not read him well enough to ascertain anything much about him, and it unnerved them both. To the Doctor, it suggested that this man's past was in their future, misplaced time-traveller that their visitor obviously was, and something was acting to prevent the Doctor from learning this, in addition to the steps the man took on his own. For Rose, there was the secondary surprise to realize that she was coming to augment her own instincts with what she gathered through the link. And to think she'd been against telepathy...

"I'm not going to tell you who I am," the man began, "and you're not going to tell me who you are either. Keep us all safe. You got great taste in guys, by the way, honey."

"Thanks," she said, agreeing with him on that front anyway.

"Well, mostly," the man amended, and he sounded like he was grinning.

"Stop it," the Doctor said, like he was telling off a small child who couldn't stop touching the flowers. The man jumped, obviously startled, then turned back to Rose. She could read the question in the set of his shoulders and the cant of his head. It was so easy.

She wanted to slap the flirtatious stranger, but he was safely out of arm's reach.

"Just. Tell us." The Doctor looked quite stern and regal as he said this, a man used to being obeyed when he gave orders.

"I've been asked," the stranger began, as if quite used to accepting the Doctor's orders, "to deliver you a message. You have to close the anomaly."

"I can't," the Doctor said. "I can't even look at it."

"Rose is here to help you," the man replied. She wondered how he knew her name, while the stranger continued talking as if nothing interesting had been said. "She'll keep you safe. But I've been told the others involved have all been by, done their part to contain it. You've got to close it. It's turned this whole time stream into a causal nexus, caused reality to skew. I didn't expect you, kid, but you're a tough little thing, I could tell from your work this morning. Nice job, blowing up a building without setting off the explosives in it. Very clever."

"I'm always clever," the Doctor replied honestly. "So who do you represent, then? Which military agency?"

"The name wouldn't mean anything to you. Baby Time Lords haven't run into us before, I promise."

"Will you quit that?" the Doctor demanded. "Just because you're older than me - although I've no idea how you managed that in this century - doesn't mean you're..."

"You call me a stupid ape, kid, and I'll lay you out, got it?"

"Stupid ape," the Doctor mused. "Well, it's an interesting turn of phrase, I suppose, but not one I had in mind."

"Good," the man said. "Listen, you have to close the nexus. Just keep tight to her hand and you can approach it. All you have to do is lend it a bit of your temporal energy."

"Can't you do it?" the Doctor questioned, mostly curious about it, although he was reluctant to approach the anomaly. "You have a vortex manipulator; even broken, it can manage a temporal wave."

"It has to be you," the man insisted. "Has to come from you. All I was told is that, in your future, farther than even you can imagine in your future, you get caught in a paradox loop with a very special Time Lord who I'd like to keep around. So, I expect, would the Universe. He's called the Doctor, and he's really important, and you can save him, kid. Just close the nexus."

How the Doctor managed to keep a straight face at this proclamation was something Rose would never know. But he not only turned his face into a marble statue of a face, he did the same to her, washing his mind over her nearly overwhelming desire to flinch or demand answers.

The man continued speaking, his voice low and weary, utterly oblivious to the turmoil rolling through the pair he was lecturing. "If you don't close the field, he'll cease to exist, and he's my friend. He owes me a lift. I'll cease to exist, too, I've been told. And Rose... I know this, because I know her. The guy who sent me doesn't know anything about her, but I do. She'll be torn apart. Scattered across time and space, never living, never dying."

The Doctor silently considered the man's words. The paradox had become enormous over the time it stretched - perhaps a two month area of real time had become subjected to the anomaly's effects. Two months in Rose's real life span, especially if it was something involving the future of her partner, could indeed cause her time lines to lose cohesion. The anti-time spill seemed to effect her rather deeply, as if all these myriad possibilities around her were somehow involved in the beginning of the paradox.

He turned to her with fear in his eyes, a bone-wrenching, aching fear that made Rose want to just snatch him up and protect him. But that was what he wanted to do to her, wrap her in cotton gauze and defend her from ever being battered by anything, never mind something so incomprehensible as an event to generate a paradox of this magnitude. The others he had suggested, like going back in time to meet herself, were nothing compared to something strong enough to put two versions of the same Time Lord on the same time track.

But they couldn't protect each other, because the thing had to be fixed or they would never be safe. The man waited in silence while the turmoil and silent communion flitted between them. Finally, the Doctor wrenched his eyes from hers and turned toward their guest, considering what he could see of the man, trying to decide if he was sincere or merely confused or being deliberately obtuse. He finally decided on sincerity only when the man continued to gaze into the Doctor's eyes - he could feel the stare, even if he couldn't see it - without flinching or moving away. "For her," he said at last.

"Thank you," the man said and made to stand.

"I have one more question," the Doctor said. "Not your name, I understand keeping that to yourself. But I would like to know..."

"Yes?" the man prompted, getting to his feet. They followed, still a bit wary.

"Who Marked you?" The Time Lord's voice capitalized the word, and the concept in his head was almost holy, a suggestion of something profound, something uncanny.

"What?"

"You're wearing someone's Mark, it's all over your visible time lines, moving backward and forward through time. Hasn't it happened yet?"

"I don't know," the man replied softly. "I didn't know anything about it." He lifted his wrist and tapped a few buttons on the wrist watch thing - vortex manipulator, the Doctor knew - and ran a bright blue beam over himself. Then, he stared at it for a few minutes, bafflement obvious in the set of his body. "Huh," he said. "There it is, plain as day. Full temporal signature." His voice sounded like he was grinning when he said, "Maybe it was the Doctor."

Rose's Doctor laughed at him. "You don't know what it is, so I'll let you off for that. No, I'd know if it was the Doctor. I'm not sure it was a Time Lord at all, although I thought only Time Lords had the concept. Might be an Eternal." He shrugged at the man. "It might come useful. No one can read your mind without your consent, and changing it would require either a genius or complete subtlety. Whatever you do, try not to let anything that high on the food chain threaten you. There's no telling what will happen, but one thing's for sure. Whatever or whoever Marked you will come for you if it happens. May take them awhile, but they'll get there."

"Thanks for the advice, kid. Now, are you going to close that hole?"

"I need to think," he said. "Give me a minute." He took Rose's hand and drew her with him off a ways from their cloaked guest.

"What is it?" Rose asked.

The Doctor sighed and pushed his dark curls out of his face. He was grinning, now, but weakly. "Poor bastard," he said of their erstwhile companion. "He's been very carefully manipulated."

"Looks like," she agreed. "Is he right?"

"About closing the paradox? Yes, very. If I become caught in a time loop with myself, that would explain this, why the energy time travelled rather than blew a hole in the vortex - it'll shatter my time line, pull me out of reality if I don't close the field. So the life I save may be my own. He's right about that part."

"Then, what's wrong?"

"For one thing, I can't stand looking at the thing. It's still anti-time, trying to overwrite my reality. The other thing is, it still doesn't explain the two anomalies we encountered. Our wedding and the rings," he added, when she couldn't remember which anomalies he meant, there'd been so many.

"Oh, right."

"You see, the thing is, if we close this paradox, it's going to light up this time line like a supernova. Every single time-sensitive being in a thirty light year radius is going to converge on this spot."

"We'll be caught," she realized, horrified.

"Exactly. And I want us to be firmly married before Borusa can move to interfere."

"Can it wait?" she asked. "'Til after the wedding?"

"I don't know," he told her. "I don't really think it should, and besides, the wedding isn't happening until I can figure out how it happened."

She couldn't understand his verb tenses - she didn't have the background or the concepts for them. Four dimensional time for a wedding set up in the past to take place in the future, yet set up the the future to take place in a different future, ribbons upon ribbons. "So someone with a time machine set it up," was the only conclusion she could reach.

"Yes. And I don't have one. The class does, but they're there and I'm..." His eyes lit up. "I'm here, about to do something that will draw every single time-sensitive to the area."

"Including a class full of half-trained Time Kids?" she asked, then grinned, her tongue poking through her teeth.

"Oh, yes," he said and grinned triumphantly. "Especially them." He laughed and picked her up, swung her around, still chattering excitedly. "We have to close the anomaly anyway, so we use it as bait."

"And then?"

"And then we steal a time machine."

"Fantastic," she said.


	25. Chapter 25

**_Author's Own Disclaimer: I have been writing Doctor Who stories for nigh on to twenty-five years. This wouldn't be impressive, except that I'm not as old as David Tennant. So, basically, they taught me to write and this is what I did with it. However, unlike _****_some_****_ big-name-fans from back in the day, I did not go on to become a TV producer when I grew up (stupid me) and therefore I do not own Doctor Who. I'm doing the disclaimer at the top of this chapter because it's about time. Also, because I need to let you know: if you have ANY questions, about Doctor Who, about Torchwood, about UNIT, about ANY of this, NOW is the time. Please email me or review or PM me or post them to boards the others frequent or SOMETHING. I do NOT want to leave anything out. Except Gwen/Gwynyth because I blame the Rift entirely for that. Anyway, still don't own Doctor Who. However, if you are or will be or have been the owner of Doctor Who/Torchwood and would like me to write for it, please let me know because I accept._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**Chapter 25: Run**

"I need a favor," the Doctor told the strange time traveler who stood in his shadows, waiting for them quite impatiently.

"Yeah, well, I'm already in this too deep, kid, and I'm pretty sure another paradox here will blow up the planet. It'll make my friend mad, he likes the place."

"Can't blame him for that," agreed the Doctor. "This is just a little thing. Every sentient thing on the planet that's the slightest bit time-sensitive is going to turn up in about fifteen minutes. I need you to tell the ones with two hearts that I went that way." He pointed back over his shoulder, toward where the hotel was, so that made sense.

"Is that where you're going?" the man asked, definitely amused.

"Sorry, nope." He grinned winningly and popped the 'p'.

The man shook his head. "I don't want to know. All right kid, you fix reality and I'll buy you some time... wait, anything that's time sensitive?"

"If it's sentient."

"Oh, thank god."

"Why?"

"There are some nasty critters here about that I suspect might be a bit sensitive. None of us want to meet them en mass. But they're not really sentient, so I'm pretty sure we'll be fine."

"Humm," the Doctor said, looking thoughtful. "If you have any backup, you may want to call it, just in case." He reached out and took Rose's hand. "We'll go handle this. If you're sure it has to be me."

"Sorry kid, you've got to save the world. Sometimes you have to clean up your mess even if you didn't know you were making it."

The Doctor sighed. "That's the trouble with time travel," he said. "Sometimes you have to clean up your mess long before you get around to making it. Look, I owe you a favor."

"Don't suppose you'd give me a ride?" the man asked.

"You'll probably miss your friend, if I do, don't you think?"

"Good point. Well, I'll put it on your tab, then, kid. Come see me when you're older and I'll buy you a drink."

If the Doctor hadn't known Rose, that comment would have gone right over his head. As it was, he understood it, she could tell, only because she was giggling. He rolled his eyes. "It's the hair, isn't it?" he asked tragically. "I should cut it."

"Don't you dare," they both ordered at once, Rose because she felt she had a right, the strange man because he was apparently quite taken with the Doctor's ebony on alabaster beauty.

"Next time I see you," he told the stranger firmly, "I'll have it cropped."

The strange man started to say something, apparently thought better of it, and said, instead, "Yeah, you do that." Then he turned away from them and moved out into the trees a little ways, probably to summon the back-up the Doctor had suggested.

"Are we going now?" asked Rose. "He said I have to hold your hand."

"Probably to keep me from passing out." He shuddered reflexively, then ran a trembling hand up to shove away his hair. "Great big bloody coward I am, don't you think?"

"Honestly?" she asked. "No, I don't. Nice thing about this link, Doctor, is I can sense your motives. Yeah, you're afraid, but you're afraid for the right reasons. Hell, I'm afraid, too. I don't want us to be separated. We belong together."

"I know. But that bloke's right about one thing. If we don't close this schism, your reality will get caught in mine when it goes up. I didn't think about the consequences, just swept you under and now..."

"Oh, no you don't!" she snapped. "You're not going to feel guilty for bringing me into this. The only thing you ever did before you told me you were an alien was snog me. I got into this with both eyes open, and I'm not looking back. If it's got to be us against Gallifrey and Earth and everything in between, then, so help me, it will be."

"Thank you," he said with feeling and hugged her tight, resting his forehead against hers and breathing deeply as if inhaling her conviction along with the air around her. "This is what will happen, listen. That thing is going to be a bit of a problem, wrestling it into its box. I can't tell you what we'll see. Possibilities and impossibilities and dead-end time lines and futures that could never happen. Worlds inside worlds inside ideas. But once we get it closed, we need to run. Very quickly and very quietly. We need to get down to the waterfront. The capsule is there and we're going to take it."

"Hope you know how to fly it."

He laughed a little and pulled her the rest of the way into his embrace, resting her head on his chest. "Yes, I can 'fly' it. I'm actually quite good, I've been told, for a... oh what was it... 'deranged child with no concern for the laws of temporal physics or any other laws for that matter.'"

She giggled. "He called you deranged to your face? Oh, no wonder you don't like him!"

"Actually, I'm quite fond of Lord Borusa and I suspect he rather likes me more than he wants to do. We just exist in a mutual wary respect." He shrugged. "He may become a very powerful Time Lord before it's all said and done, but I expect him to usually do the right thing, even if it makes no sense to anyone else at the time."

"Yes, but he failed you on your exam," she reminded him. "Even after he said you were good."

He sighed. "I firmly maintain that no capsule Type-70 or higher is ever going to like me. I'm too fond of the older models and they can sense it. The capsules have a sort of telepathic field. They're grown, you know, not built, and the older they are, the more interesting the field becomes. Almost as if they're really alive." He took her hand again. "But I'm being ridiculous, everyone says. They're just programmed to imitate sentient life is all." He frowned and tugged his hair back again. "All right, let's go, there's no sense standing around."

He let her lead him because he wasn't physically capable of walking toward the thing of his own volition. They cleared the trees and the light was abruptly visible. The Doctor, breathing heavy and harsh beside her, looked around the clearing, at the opposite trees, any where but right at the light. He was planning to leave that until the last possible minute.

The time traces around the scene became visible to him - and her through him - by the bizarre lighting cast by the anomaly. Each trace showed the vague half shadow of a man - all somewhat familiar, all a bit strange. Each had the hand of a companion or two, and each approached the thing on tenterhooks. They weren't real, they were gone, but the Doctor could see clearly where they had been. The images were translations of what the time lines said, shadows of things that had gone before.

There were twelve distinct lines. "Twelve," the Doctor said, his voice baffled and maybe a bit angry. "One of them slipped past me and the others as well. Zedric and Koschei tracked down two. There were two today, the one at the pizza place last night, the one at the other pizza place. One each we saw at the library, at the chippy, on the way back to the hotel. And two when I first met you. I can't imagine how one of them could slip past me. But there's his trace... oh. He was the first here, after me. And, if I'm not mistaken..." He blinked and shook his head to clear it. "He's the oldest, the one who closed the paradox on the other end. No wonder so many of us have been turning up."

Rose realized it all at once, and it shook her to the core to know it. These various people turning up weren't actually merely different Time Lords. They were her Doctor, all variations of him, bits of his future colliding with his past. It was too weird to be believed, and some of it, she didn't dare think about at the moment. Instead, she asked, "But how will that work, Doctor? Won't that be another paradox, all these different versions of you turning up? I mean, you'll remember it, right? So you'll know not to get into the paradox in the first place, so you'll not have to come here, so you won't know... God, it's giving me a headache!"

He sighed wearily, sounding utterly defeated. "It's this nexus, a central point. It's causal, it means that everything that happens has to happen and can't be stopped. This time line, as I told you, allows for the mutually exclusive. Anything can turn up here, even if it can't possibly turn up here. The minute these other mes left this time line, the nexus closes for them and the memory is erased, because to them, it never happened in real time, just in the nexus. They and anyone with them go right back to whatever they were doing before they felt the nexus open against their time lines and moved to set it right. It required every last one of me to contain and close it, and to protect that, the nexus included the erasure of it. Simple quantum physics. Can't see the cat in the box, because the cat is only real so long as it's unobserved."

"Well, you didn't do it half-way, did you?" she asked, observing through his eyes the muddled, mingled images.

"No," he agreed sadly. "Looks like I managed to... oh, I can't even tell what I've done. It looks almost like... this is mad. I got caught up in a major temporal event with my future along for the ride?"

"Don't worry about it," she pleaded. "Look, just, how did they close it, so we can do it too and get out of here. I'm too scared to stay any longer."

"Right," he agreed. "I just have to touch it, that's all. You shouldn't have to do... well, it looks like one of the people with me had to touch it and..." He narrowed his focus on one particular time line and checked it against the associated lines with it. "I think it's the bloke who looks like the bloke in the military coat. He touched it, too. Must have been required. You may have to after all. I'll know as soon as I touch it, though." The time lines were so blurry and hazy but he could make them out relatively clearly, anywhere that they weren't deliberately skewed to protect the nexus.

"All right," she agreed, and squeezed his hand. "I love you."

He took a deep, shaky breath. "I love you too," he whispered and let her be his courage.

His eyes turned at last to the nexus and his stomach immediately tried to revolt. Rose clung to him, let her calm and wonder wash over him, breathed deeply and slowly.

Then, unable to help it or avoid it, she looked, too.

* * *

Reality went mad.

_Eternity washed through her, summoned her; she belonged to it, child of sealed paradox, born at her own hand, created in the moment of her death to bring life. She died, oh she died, a dozen times in an instant, a mistake here, a murder there, an enemy here, for his sake, again, again, again. She died and lived and he lived and..._

_**EVERYBODY LIVES, ROSE!**_

_She was a northern star, not a girl, never a girl, never so mortal, but always so human, never not human, always be human because human is, human must, human is Rose is human..._

_**Everything she does is so human.**_

_Never simple, never small, and only to hold his hand because he must have a hand to hold because he burns at the heart of Time and he is the only living thing and I have died so many times and lived for them and died for them. See you in hell. And though I have all knowledge and though I give up my body to be burned and have not love..._

_**I think you need a Doctor.**_

_Doctor, a Doctor, this Doctor, that Doctor. Her Doctor. And she has loved him before already and never met him before and she has always wanted to know him because she knows him and will know him in all his infinite permutations and the moment before that end where he dies of her, she will see it all and love it all and be it all and she will become what she is because what she feels for him is more than even she knew..._

_**I lo... I love you**_

_Quite right too. Because it is right, it is his right and he hates it and will hate it and the only thing he will ever hate is himself. Everything else is love that must never be spoken because everything he loves dies. One heart belongs to you, the other to the Universe, hold the one you have and hold his hand. Everything belongs to him, was given to him before and after and time and again, given to him by his father, brought to him by his mother, the judgement his because he is alone. He must destroy because the fire and the water purify and wash it clean and it is a cancer and he is a surgeon, the healer for all reality..._

_**I want you safe. My Doctor.**_

_She brings life and death follows him and they must dance because the Universe will implode if the Doctor does not dance and... and... and..._

The truth swept her under.

_Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me I don't like it. Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and have a jelly baby because a man is the sum of his memories. A Time Lord even more so. Never more a butterfly, days like crazy pavement. I am the Doctor!_

_**Oh, she knows.**_

_Time itself hangs on her every mortal breath because someday everything is hers and she will choose you alone above all creation. What you have done what you have become what you must be and will be and everything comes to dust and you must choose when and she will choose you. She made you and you made her and it is perfect balance and perfect sacrifice and Time folded in on itself, the ending in the beginning in the parting of the ways..._

_**I create myself.**_

_"You were fantastic. And you know what? So was I." Ok, now you've done it say something witty. Flirt with her, she likes that, the most flirtatious line you'll ever know, "Hello, I'm Cap..." No, not yet, stupid. "Oh, new teeth..." Even stupider..._

_**He's left me...**_

_Rose, my Rose, my precious girl, I can't leave I won't leave, not you, not ever. Dance with me be with me I am me. One hand reach out, one word, just one._

**_RUN._**

The dream exploded around Rose but she could see her way through, now. She gave the Doctor everything she had and he reached, desperately, with their joined hands, using her eyes because his were on things she didn't want to see. She didn't want him to see them, either, so she clung to him, drew him to her, hoping even if it killed her to always be with him forever.

Their hands shook and grew so very cold and then, with a sensation of reaching into the sky from under water, they collided with the anomaly. In that single instant, she heard a song, still and silent, infinite in its loneliness. Music filled her, the moment at the other end of this paradox, where a man alone for generations returned his life from the despair of ignorance to the abject misery of knowledge, howling against the truth every bit as bitter as the falsehood he had ached to leave behind. A single, small clock chimed off the hour, so many unfathomable, ephemeral hours from now. The sound she heard then had haunted her dreams all her life. The smell of time and wonder wreathed around her as that unearthly roar filled the world at the other end.

Tick, tick, tock, and it was done.

The anomaly collapsed back into nothingness without even a ripple. The Doctor sagged against her and Rose ached to collapse into him. They shook themselves and stared, blinded, into the sudden darkness, feeling rather like they'd just walked through hell, lengthwise.

"We have to go," the Doctor whispered, his voice breathless and somehow as pale as his face. She nodded and, stumbling at first, they ran, desperation and sudden adrenaline wiping away fear and questions as one.

They charged on as fast as their bodies would take them, making for the water front, trying to avoid being caught or seen by the simple expedient of dodging through human crowds. No one tried to stop them.

They ran.

They were never going to make it, Rose realized. This was such a mad idea, but it had made so much sense at the time. Still, they carried on, letting hope and passion and fire drive them to move faster. Rose had a stitch in her side; the Doctor's respiratory bypass was operating at intervals that seemed more arrhythmic than the anxious pounding of her heart.

The water front was in sight, but Rose didn't see anything that resembled a space craft, even as the Doctor noticed a large, out of order vending machine standing against a handy wall. That was it, hiding in plain sight, disguised by the miracle of their strange, incredibly advanced technology.

Forty feet. Their feet pounded on the pavement and, despite the wind of their passage, her hair was sticking to her face.

Thirty feet. The ship was right there. Just a simple bit of programming set up, and they would be off into space and time together.

Twenty feet. They were going to make it, and go away together in order to make their wedding get to the "church" on time.

Ten feet.

A single body stepped lithely from the shadows, freezing them in their tracks. The Doctor stared in consternation, fury and sorrow and a deep sense of betrayal warring inside him with a feeling of bottomless guilt. He seemed to be seriously contemplating knocking the bloke and his shadow on the ground and pounding at them.

The figure stepped into the light as she froze, everywhere inside herself, even her blood soaring cold and bitter through her veins. She could not stop the fear of getting caught, of losing everything so very close to her goal. She stared at him in wonder and desperation. It couldn't be, it had to be just the darkness. But a few seconds blinking and the shape stayed unwavering.

His voice spoke, strong and strange and compelling. "Stop."

Rose felt her heart sinking into her shoes.

It was Koschei.


	26. Chapter 26

_**Jackie Tyler Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. I don't believe anyone does. He's mad enough to be sectioned, no matter what his face looks like, and if you want to own him, you probably ought to be sectioned, too. Yes, that DOES include you, Rose Marion Tyler. All this time travel nonsense. I swear, I bet you two just hang out in a cafe in Edinburgh and come up with this stuff. Yes, I'll admit the box is bigger on the inside but whose to say he isn't doing that with some alien mind control or something... No, I will NOT tell you fan fiction people how you can get him. Geroff! I may not like him, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to look after him. He's looking after my daughter for God's sake...**_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

**This is a warning**: I may have pushed the rating again in one tiny place. If you are at all squicked by the barest suggestion of "slash", you might want to sit bits of this one out.

* * *

**Chapter 26: Preserving a Time Line**

Koschei stared at them, and they stared back at him, none of them blinking, Rose hardly daring to breathe. She was so angry she could hardly think, but so sad, too, because she'd never wanted anyone to be in pain. She could see tears standing in the boy's eyes and she hurt for him, so much, because no one should have to endure this sort of thing. Or... She hurt for him, and the Doctor hurt more, that was it. It was so hard for him to watch Koschei hurt, because he did adore the older boy, adored him and trusted him and needed him, really. The realization skittered over her, along with another, deeper truth.

The Doctor knew.

Koschei held up a hand, something dangling from it, shiny, silver in the light. "You'll need this," he whispered, and looked desperately away from them.

The Doctor's emotions went critical, leaving behind rage and fear and hurt betrayal, picking up instead pride and trust and so much love it was painful. He looked at Koschei, wishing he could make it better, wishing desperately that he had been able to return a measure of what was offered him. He never had, he never could.

Rose moved to say something, to thank him, but Koschei held up a hand. "Hide," he ordered softly and they ducked behind the nearest bins, peeking out between them at the scene as it unravelled.

"There's a muddled time line still at stake," Zedric said coldly as he approached. "Where are they?"

"You're trying to preserve a time line?" Koschei spat.

"Yes," the golden-haired Time Lord replied quietly. And then, realization brightening his face and lighting his golden eyes like Christmas, he threw his hands in the air and whooped ecstatically. "And so are you! Oh, I do love you, you mad bastard!"

Koschei started laughing and the Doctor and Rose crept from their hiding places. Zedric snatched Rose up and twirled her around, kissing her quickly on the cheek. "Just so you know, I'm glad I met you, Rose Tyler."

"Me, too," she answered. "You're right cheeky, Rho, but it's an honor."

"Come with us," the Doctor pleaded of both of them.

"No," said Zedric, while Koschei looked hesitant. "Not me. You'll be a brother to me for the rest of our lives, Doctor, but I'm afraid you need a different sort of help just now." He reached into the Doctor's pocket and snatched out the little whirring box that had led them so far today. A quick flicker of his long fingers over the box and the golden-haired Time Lord looked up at them both and grinned.

The box gave off a soft whir, a quiet squeak and lay silent. Zedric shook it lightly and cursed. Brilliant temporal energy blasted from it in invisible golden waves.

"That's done it," he said gleefully. "Love you all," he added, and charged off, with the box, scattering mangled time energy as he went.

"What did he do?" the Doctor demanded.

Koschei chuckled. "He borrowed Rose's time traces - there's so many of them, he just cloned them off and they'll cloak the whole area." His soft grey eyes turned sad again, and Rose felt her heart go out to him. "He's using himself for bait, so they can't find you."

"Come with us?" the Doctor pleaded again.

"I..." The boy stopped and looked sharply around. "Dammit, hide," he said in exasperation.

They ducked back behind the bins and a few brief moments passed in anxious, waiting silence. Then, a great crowd of people charged up, a small older woman breathing quickly through her sharp little nose, and a large assortment of kids, whose expressions ranged the whole spectrum from giddy exaltation down to infuriated disgust. That last was all Rose could read on the haughty, distinguished face of the girl at the back, who didn't seem to think much of any of this.

_"That's Ushas,"_ the Doctor's voice informed her. He began pointing out the various Time Lord children to her; Drax, the little rat-faced boy who was going to fail out any day now, Hedin, the tall, willowy studious one, Damon, who liked everyone, even Ushas; so many Time Lords she didn't want to meet yet.

"Have you seen either of them, Koschei?" asked the woman in a stern voice that reminded Rose a bit of her old headmistress and a bit of her mum. Lady Thalia, as the Doctor informed her, was a gifted Time Lord, but she had no imagination whatever.

"Zedric was here," Koschei said. "He went that way, I think." He pointed blithely back the way Zedric had come, as apparently in the field filled with Rose's possibilities, it would be impossible to tell if he was arriving or departing until it was too late.

"But you haven't seen Thete at all?" she demanded. "I was sure even he couldn't resist the energy of a closing nexus. Infuriating boy. I'll have to have a long talk with his sponsor when we get back to Gallifrey, I'm sure of it."

_"Good luck with that,"_ the Doctor thought, dryly. Rose fought down the urge to giggle.

"Don't you have any idea where he could have gone?" she demanded.

"He's not completely clever, Lady Thalia," Koschei replied. "He probably made friends with one of the local anomalies the moment he arrived and is using the glitch to hide himself. I've checked most of them, already, but I can't seem to catch up to the military gentleman. I expect he's probably the one hiding Thete. Have you seen the man at all?"

"Tall, sort of... pretty?"

Koschei shrugged. "If you like the type. But I meant more that his time traces are all skewed."

"Ah," she said. "No, I hadn't considered that. Yes, that might even hide an arrogant little Time brat. If Lord Borusa returns, tell him I am going to find that man. The students will stay with me."

"I can come with you, too," he offered.

"No, I think not. Lord Borusa asked you to remain here. You're the responsible one, Koschei, I expect you to behave better."

"Of course, Lady Thalia."

She stormed off with the class full of Time kids in her wake, quite a few of them grumbling that it was exactly like Thete to force them to run all over the world for him.

As Rose emerged from the bins, she really thought that what Koschei deserved, for everything he had done for them, was a damn good snog. But she knew it wasn't her place, and he didn't want a snog from her, anyway. So instead, she wrapped her arms around him, kissed his cheek, and pulled back from him, breathlessly. "Koschei," she announced, her voice thick with admiration, "you lie like a master."

He beamed at her proudly, then turned to the Doctor, to see what the younger boy had to say about all this. The Doctor was watching him, quietly and very seriously. "We'll be back in maybe fifteen minutes," he promised. "I'll materialize the capsule back at the park, I think, away from where the anomaly was located. Will that be all right?"

"Should be fine," Koschei agreed quietly. "A handful of Time Lords wandering around for a half-hour in the dark shouldn't be a problem."

The Doctor reached over then, and did something he had never done before, never been mad or brave or reckless enough to even try before. His fingers light and gentle, he cupped his hand on Koschei's cheek. "I have always loved you, you know," he said softly.

And then, before Koschei or even Rose could react to that life-altering pronouncement, he leaned in to the older boy, tilted his head just so, and kissed Koschei full on his lips.

He hadn't thought, or had no intention, maybe, of closing his barriers, and so Rose could do nothing more than stand there in frozen, giddy shock, and _feel_...

There was nothing chaste about this kiss, one of a kind event that it was, and both participants believed it would have to sustain them for a lifetime. The Doctor wanted to give the other boy all he needed in this one gesture, to try to help him understand what was there and what was missing. He had learned a lot about kissing in a short time and used his knowledge well. His tongue slipped out between parted lips, brushing Koschei's, pleading for entrance and, though obviously shocked, Koschei allowed him with a sigh that sounded relieved. The Doctor brushed Koschei's tongue to encourage him, let him know it was all right, and all at once the kiss changed.

Koschei's hands shot up through the Doctor's dark curls, tilting his head further, taking control. Tongues dueled, teeth clashed. There was anger there, and bruising punishment, but so much wet heat and passion. So much fire and hunger and, oh the burning wonder of touching from never touching, and the weary longing for this, for once, for giving in to desire, just once.

Moving closer, their hips brushed and Koschei let out a soft, aching moan of pure, unadulterated need. He lowered his hands from the Doctor's hair, and caught the younger boy's hips instead, pulling him closer, grinding into him, wishing, wanting...

Rose couldn't even breathe, just stood there, and let everything, every sensation, every thought, every moan and sigh roll over her like thunder and pounding drums.

Their minds touched, their bodies touched, their lips and tongues and hands touched. Such a battle was going on inside one of them, and when it was lost, it was won as well. Koschei pulled away from the Doctor, broke the kiss, stared at him with wonder and awe and pain.

"Go inside, now. He's coming. I... I'm sorry, but you're right. It's time to let you go."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "I love you, though."

"Quite right, too," Koschei said, and there was something about that. It meant so much more than just three words. It meant the emotion was good and accepted and returned, meant that it was correct to feel that way, to be that way. It warmed the Doctor through to hear it and Rose smiled softly.

She reached up a hand and cupped Koschei's other cheek, gracing his lips so briefly with her own while the Doctor unlocked the door behind them. "Thank you," she told him again, and meant it even more this time.

"And now I know what you meant," Koschei said, shaking his head and smiling at her, so sweetly. "You saw right through me."

She nodded and kissed his cheek and then reached out and took the Doctor's hand. Keeping her eyes open wide so she wouldn't miss an instant, she stepped with him through the door of the vending machine, through a door in reality to another life that awaited her.

The Doctor did several things while she stood there, just gaping like an idiot, but she was utterly unaware of them until a screen in the right hand wall sprang to life. Outside, Koschei watched them, then cleared his face utterly of all its dazed wonder while an elegant older gentleman in a three piece suit approached.

"Where is he, Koschei?" the man asked softly. "There's been enough mayhem and chaos for one trip and it's time we all went home."

"That way," Koschei pointed, the way Zedric had run off. He paused. "I'd better go with you, sir."

The man, Borusa, stopped and looked at him intently, through dark eyes that seemed to miss absolutely nothing. "Yes, I expect you'd better," he agreed. "I think he'll listen to you." The man paused. "Koschei, I'm sorry to tell you, but I think your friend has gotten completely out of control this time."

"He'll be fine, sir. Thete's always a bit extreme, any way."

The older man considered him again and Rose clutched at the nearest thing to hang on to - looked like a brass railing of some sort - worried that the game was up despite their best efforts. Koschei's face shone innocent and clear and Borusa finally nodded. "Well, you know him best, or Zedric does, and they're both gone now, curse the pair of them. Come along, boy, let's see if we can find him."

The Doctor heaved a sigh of relief as they walked out of range, then touched something and the monitor shut down. He waited what seemed a small eternity, then started touching various controls on the odd, hexagonal console between them.

When he reached her side, he turned to her slowly, his expression very chastened and quite shy. "Sorry," he breathed, but she said the exact same thing at the same time.

He gazed at her, wonder struck and baffled, blue eyes full of boundless love. "Wait," he said, "I know what I'm apologizing for." He tilted his head toward the door and a blush brightened his fair cheeks. "What do you have to be sorry about?"

She raised her hands to her lips, almost expecting hers to be as bruised as his own from that strange, heady, vicarious embrace. She felt her cheeks go red as well, then her whole body blushing as she shivered with some residual sensation. Reluctantly, unwillingly, as his eyes bored into hers, she confessed in a halting whisper, "That was... that was _hot_."

Laughing and whooping with delight, he clutched her close and dragged her with him around the console, pressing buttons, moving levers, brushing dials. "Fantastic," he shouted gleefully and touched one last key.

Nothing happened, but she could have sworn she heard singing. Then, for the first time in her entire life, she heard a sound that was utterly unique and completely familiar to her. With a great roar and a barely felt tremble, the small central pillar of the console began to move. There was the faintest vibration and then the sound softened to a faded background hum.

The Doctor turned to her and looked into her eyes. "Yesterday," he proclaimed in ringing tones, "here we come."


	27. Chapter 27

**Amazingly Long List Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not owned by Jessa L'Rynn, montypython203, TCASM (regardless of her nick at the moment) or any of her vast and ecumenical collection of chibis, Kathryn Shadow, OlfactoryVentriloquism (she told me so), beans on toast, UNIT, JK Rowling, William Shakespeare, Ianto Jones, Harriett Jones, Martha Jones, Fred Flintstone, Fred Weasley, Eric Idle, Eric the Red, Madame du Pompadour, the artist intermittently known as Prince, Prince Charles of Wales, Captain Ahab of Whales, Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, Priceline dot com, fanfiction dot net, the Good Magician Humphrey, Arthur Dent, Arthur the Horse, Belgarath the Sorceror, Odin, Eris, Aphrodite, Jake Simmonds, Julius Ceasar, Superman, Vince Vega, Xenophilius Lovegood, Winston Churchill or, coming 2009, Russell T. Davies!**

_**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.  
**_

* * *

**Chapter 27: Blazing**

"Well, what do you think?" the Doctor asked, bouncing on his toes, and with his hands tucked in his shirt.

Rose shook her head. "S'bigger on the inside," she said. "How did they do that?"

He shrugged, not as if he didn't know, but as if it didn't matter. "The capsules aren't _really_ bigger on the inside. They're not _really _inside... It's complicated. Let's say that we're in two places at the same time. Which is technically true, because outside that door is sunny Cardiff."

"Thought we were leaving there?"

"No, we left _then_. There stayed the same."

If he got any smugger - was smugger a word? - apparently not - but if he smirked any more she was going to have to knock him down and either smack him with something or snog that look off his face.

"I vote snog," he proclaimed cheerfully.

"I dunno," she said, eying him with a teasing smirk of her own. "You already got a snog."

"Yours are better," he assured her.

"I dunno," she repeated, still grinning.

"I said I was sorry," he defended.

She sighed. Did they really have to discuss this? With her clearly able to see his thoughts, to know he didn't do anything to hurt her, to make her jealous or insecure? She knew for a fact that he was sorry, sorry to have to make such a melodramatic statement to get the point across to his friend, sorry that he'd used English when the more specific Gallifreyan would have been more accurate, sorry he couldn't fix Koschei, whatever that meant. It was her idea, after all, in a way.

"You should always," she told him, "let people know how you feel when you part ways. Because there's no going back. Sometimes that just means you change after that, sometimes it means you'll never see them again. Either way, you can't keep it to yourself if you really love someone."

"I've always loved him, respected him, admired him. But it's just..." He spoke a short Gallifreyan word that meant something entirely different than the word he used with her. "That's all. And you were right, he did deserve a kiss, and he has done so much for us. It helped him, you know, understand that what I feel and what he feels are two entirely different emotions. They're both called the same thing in your language, because they're both without conditions, but all that passion and fire and challenge that he wants, it just isn't there for me. Only time I ever feel like anything similar is when we're arguing, and that's just because he refuses to see things from my point of view some times. Possibly entirely so I'll argue with him. Knowing Koschei, I wouldn't doubt it." He sighed.

"Even if I never knew you, I could never give him what he wanted. Maybe he'll move on - I hope so. Because now I do know you, and you're everything I could have ever wanted or needed in another person, and you love me back. I don't want him hurt, but I'm not giving you up for any reason, never ever."

She accepted that, knowing it was all true. His thoughts and feelings were entwined with hers, she could never doubt him. So she gave him that kiss he wanted and he felt better for it.

"So, what's out there?" she asked at last.

He pulled a large lever on the console and the double doors vibrated inward. "Today is one month and one week before we ever came here. But other than that, nothing's changed. Want to see?"

She nodded eagerly and they stepped outside hand in hand.

He was right, nothing had changed. The city was exactly as they had left it, except that it was early morning now instead of not quite dawn. She looked around briefly, and the only thing that she found was an abandoned newspaper with the date across it, exactly one week and one month before she and her mum arrived with Chris, the bastard.

Somewhere else, she was still sitting in a class with Shireen at Jericho Street Comprehensive, pointedly ignoring her maths instructor. Somewhere else, he had never set foot on this planet. She turned back to show him the paper and blinked in surprise.

He was running a hand up the side of the capsule. It had changed. Where it had been pretending to be an out of order vending machine, it had, apparently, picked a different disguise - not a very good one, she might add. She had seen such things in London from time to time, and thought maybe they turned up in old movies as part of the scenery or a necessary prop. But it looked out of place in Cardiff and, until a couple walked past them ignoring it and them as well, she was sure the new disguise was useless, a hopeless anachronism.

But no one even seemed to see it except them. That was fine, though, because really, how would they explain going in and out of a 1950's police box?

"So, Rose Tyler," said the Doctor, offering her grin and arm alike, "shall we go plan a wedding?"

"Let's!" She took his arm and they walked off. They had the beginning of a lifetime to put together and only a month to do it with.

* * *

It was like a honeymoon before the wedding. The capsule was a wonderland to Rose, with beautiful rooms and baths and a wardrobe that seemed to go on forever. "How does she do this?" Rose asked, watching the corridors shift when she was hungry late one evening.

She'd taken, the very first day, to addressing the capsule as a female. The Doctor was baffled by this until he understood that in Rose's culture, ships were ladies. He found it lovely and endearing but tried not to get into the habit himself, because Gallifrey didn't have the same custom. "Telepathic field," he explained. "They know what you need and, if they have access to it, they arrange to provide it for you."

"Kind of strange, though, because, I mean, some of the clothes and stuff..."

He smiled fondly and patted the nearest wall. "They're trans-temporal objects, Rose. It's possible for them to move things around in time. So if there's something we need that's from the capsule's future, we can still get to it. Of course, this one is very old and I suppose she's - it's - got a long history to draw from. The capsules exist in temporal grace - which means that things that happen here are not exactly permanent. They're outside of real time, unaffected by the world outside."

"So if I, like, twisted my ankle in here..."

"A small temporal shift would heal it right up."

"But if I did it outside..."

"Then you'd have to go to the Med Bay. There's a right fancy one in here, like one of the pilots was a professional physician or something."

"Brilliant," she replied, and patted the wall as fondly as he had.

* * *

Despite their shared joy in their successes and the future they were planning together, not everything came through in perfect harmony. They left the Registry Office early the second day and Rose was in a towering temper. "You were bored out of your mind in there," she accused, bluntly.

A bloke passing by shot him a look of sympathy. He didn't even have the standard human defense of, "Of course I wasn't, honey..." because she knew exactly what he was thinking and feeling, existing inside his skull as she did. "Of course I was," he replied. "You were, too!"

"That's not the point!" she shouted. The point was that he was bored and he could have been not bored because it was their wedding, and why was that boring? And, ok, so it had been paperwork, and ok, she really had been bored, too, but didn't it say something that he was bored about their wedding? Maybe?

Since he seemed to know that she was just picking a fight, he shot back, "Then what is the point? You were bored, I was bored, he was bored. It's boring!"

They proceeded to have a blazing row, right there in the middle of downtown Cardiff. She was wrong, this time, and didn't want to admit it, and he wasn't about to let it go if she wasn't going to understand that he was right. When she stormed off, he shrugged and, with a parting shot of, "Don't even think about calling your mother!" he headed back to the capsule.

That had been exactly what she was thinking about, but she wasn't going to admit that, either. She wandered over to Bute Park, thinking about time travel and how weird it was that at this very moment, she and Shireen were innocently skiving off of physics to go get chips and look at boys. She would end the day having proclaimed that all London boys were losers and that she wouldn't go out with Trent if he were the last bloke alive.

She knew, now, that it wasn't just London boys she didn't want, it was human boys at all. She sank down on a bench and stared off into space, knowing that just now, the Doctor was kicking things and thinking that he would never understand human women, even if he lived forever. His mind abruptly closed to her, and she had never felt so utterly alone in her entire life.

Someone settled on the bench next to her. "What are you doing here, Rose?" he asked. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

She turned her head to look incredulously at the speaker. "Oh, it's you," she said, and calmed down once she'd recognized that American bloke in the military coat.

"Not exactly," he replied.

"You aren't making sense," she told him, not really caring anyway. He was one of the local anomalies, so it didn't matter if or when he recognized her, did it?

"I might never make sense again," he said, and shrugged. "So what's eating you?"

"Long story."

"I've got all the time in the world," he offered.

"No thanks," she said. Then she sighed. "It's just... I really don't know what I was thinking, I don't think I was, actually. I just want to talk to my mum."

"Hand me your cell phone," he said, winking at her. "You don't belong here, I can see that, and we both know what I'm talking about. I'll fix it for you, for one emergency call back to where you do belong."

Shrugging, she passed it over. Whatever. He studied it with a wide smile, then took something from his pocket, ran a bright blue beam over it, and passed the mobile back. "There you go. Good for one comforting chat with Jackie Tyler."

She started. "Who _are_ you?" she demanded.

"Someone you'd best forget for now," he answered gently. His green eyes were bright and soft as he looked into hers, shining and gentle and so familiar she thought her head would swim trying to figure out why. He looked at her like the Doctor did, all admiring and sweet and loving, and she couldn't even begin to understand any of it.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, then, just because he was so very odd.

"Waiting for the beginning to end. I spend a lot of time waiting, Rose Tyler, so you don't have to worry I'll get bored. Besides, I have good company." He gestured across the park and she could just make out a figure hovering in the trees. Pity she couldn't use the Doctor's zoom trick. She thought it was probably a woman, though, from the way the figure was standing. "I'd ask what you're doing, but I'm almost terrified to find out. Bound to rip up yet another time line, that."

She snorted. "Yeah, probably. My... friend says this place is a hole in the world with a hole in the Universe in the middle of it."

The military bloke laughed, and his laugh was so beautiful and so familiar, it made her want to laugh too, almost, despite how sad she felt. "Good description, I'll have to remember it. Go on, place your call and get back to where ever you're supposed to be. We'll talk about it later."

"All right," she agreed, not even sure why that made perfect sense. "Thanks," she added.

"No problem." He stood and caught the lapels of his great coat in his hands, rocking back on his heels and smirking at her. Her breath caught and she couldn't even say why. "You stay out of trouble, Rose Tyler," he ordered.

She actually laughed at this. "Like that's ever gonna happen."

His laughter as he strode away made her wish, more than anything, that she'd never even tried to yell at her Doctor today. She missed him now, felt alone and empty inside without his stormy, soothing presence. Oh, she knew he'd never leave her, but she'd just left him, and it was all so stupid anyway.

She was so busy worrying that the military bloke floated right out of her head. She placed the call instead, and when Jackie picked up, she felt immediately better.

"Are you having a good time dancing, Rose?" Jackie asked, and then giggled.

Rose blinked in surprise. So she was calling from the past to reach her mum in the future. "Well, I was... we sorta... we had a bit of a fight."

"Oh, I'm sorry," her mother said. "What about?"

"Nothing, that's just it. I was just mad because he was right."

Her mother sounded both happy and drunk as she replied, quite firmly, "So go make up with him."

Was it that easy? She'd said some stupid things, after all, called him arrogant and bull-headed and, if she remembered correctly, half-mad. "What're you doing?" she asked instead.

"Met the most fascinating bloke," Jackie replied happily.

"What happened to Howard?" she wondered aloud.

"He's passed out in his drink in the next booth. Been chatting up this Welch girl half his age all night, looked like her boyfriend was gonna pound him, but he's having a nap now."

Rose chuckled. "You let him get in trouble," she teased. "I hope he forgives you."

"He won't remember any of this tomorrow," she replied. "What he's put away, puts me to shame, it does. S'pose that's the Irish in 'im." She chuckled. "Yes," she said to someone, because she took the phone away from her mouth, "I'll be right there, you can buy me whatever you're having..." Her voice came back. "Sorry, sweetheart, just..." And went away again... "What do you mean you've no idea what to order? All right, well, just get the local ale and I'll have one, too. Ta." She took a deep breath and giggled again. "He's a bit of all right," she said cheerfully. "Older bloke. But never mind. You need to go make up with your Doctor and stop standing around the parking lot fretting. Get 'im to dance with you, it'll be fine."

Rose sighed. "All right, Mum. Have a good night."

"Oh, I'm sure I will," Jackie replied cheekily. "You stay out of trouble, miss."

"I will," she promised. "Love you."

"Love you, too, sweetheart. I'll see you tomorrow."

Her mum rang off and Rose sat back and sighed. Not tomorrow. Not for another month, actually. But this was what she agreed to, what she wanted. There would be an apocalypse when that tomorrow finally got here. It was best, now, to cherish the time she had with him before the disaster hit, because she would have to explain to her mum everything that happened. It wouldn't be enough to say she'd run off and gotten married. Rather, she would have stolen a time machine, gone back in time, arranged a wedding, and eloped with an alien.

If the alien would forgive her.

She returned to the capsule slowly, bothered by the realization that, if he didn't want her to come back, she was pretty much out of luck because the door was locked to her. She firmly believed that, right until the moment she touched the door and it swung open, the alien song rising in her head as it did. It was so odd, that sound, but so warm and familiar.

"Think it likes you," the Doctor said. He was slumped in that throne-like chair off to the side of the console, idly toying with a bright red yo-yo and listening to some music that sounded like it came from outer space.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Dunno," he said. "You?"

"Apologizing."

He blinked up at her, apparently astounded, and reached for her with shaking hands. "No, you were right, I am arrogant and stubborn and... and half-mad, I guess."

"Must be all the way mad to put up with me," she murmured, stepping closer. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I don't know what I was thinking, I just... I blew up at you for no reason, and you had every right to be arrogant and stubborn. I wouldn't change you for the world."

He seized her hands, then, and the wall between them blew away like so much dust. "Don't leave me again," he pleaded. "Just... I don't want you to leave me. If you want to yell at me, then stay and yell."

She shook her head. "I don't want to yell at you," she promised. "You might want to yell at me, though."

"Doesn't work that way," he said. "You forgive me, I forgive you, we go on. Agreed?"

"Yeah, all right." She cupped his cheek with her hand and he nuzzled it with his nose, making her smile a little. Then, she remembered something, and grinned. "You know, humans have a tradition in this sort of situation," she told him.

"Oh?" he asked, curiosity piqued by the tone of her voice and the suggestion that there was some custom he didn't know about.

She leaned over and whispered it in his ear. He leaned back and looked at her, dubious and wondering and just completely beautiful. She nodded shyly, and his face lit up with hope and amusement and that sparkling, her-eyes-only expression she knew as his boundless love.

"Fantastic," he pronounced.

He was right, too.


	28. Chapter 28

**_Susan Foreman Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. Yes, I know that for a fact; I'm his grandchild. And I understand I have a new aunt who is already more popular than me, and she's only a month old. And strangely good at gymnastics. Anyway, fan-fiction writers don't own Doctor Who or the associated characters, either, not even this writer, who is telling such a complicated story. About myself? Well, there's nothing I'm allowed to say, really. I have dark hair and... oh, sorry..._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. New challenges for May have been added! Due to lack of response, at least one of April's will remain up. The new set will run through the end of May. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**Chapter 28: Last Preparations**

"Even if I didn't know that's what the rings are supposed to say," the Doctor told her softly, "that's what I'd want them to say." He finished the delicate drawing with a careful few strokes of his pen. "In Gallifreyan, too, because the implications of the possessive are more accurate that way. Are you all right?"

"Yes, fine," Rose replied. "Just a little sleepy. So it means something special, does it?"

He grinned and nodded. "I'll explain in a minute." He trotted off to find their salesman and introduce himself, the first time for the man, the second time for them.

Everything was in place now, or would be once the rings were ordered. They had decided on a small location wedding at sunrise on the morning they had left, a simple thing, a few vows, a couple of witnesses, a legal document. It was funny, but without that psychic paper, none of this would have been possible. So it was a paradox making a paradox happen, the whole scenario as tied up and twisted in on itself as the lines of possibility that he saw swirling around her.

They could go back now but they had decided not to do. They wanted to spend time, just the two of them, getting to enjoy the peace and quiet and just being together without having to constantly watch for his tutor and her mother and a whole slew of paradoxes lying around for them to trip over.

They left the jewelry store and he began yet another involved explanation of the nature of the Gallifreyan language, the implications of a possessive that was mutual exchange tripping merrily off his tongue.

* * *

Some mornings, he and Rose would just walk around the town, laughing and loving and holding hands. Some afternoons, they explored the ruins in the nearby Welsh countryside. Sometimes, they went to see movies or brought videos back to the capsule to watch, living a life of simplicity and domestic tranquility. Some times he got insanely bored and, to distract him, she would ask him questions that were complex and difficult even for him.

He was a teacher at heart, in a lot of ways, a completely chaotic and impatient one, but she was lucky. She would be the only student he ever had who would understand his lessons from the inside, so she had an advantage, even if he did some times look at her like she was six kinds of an idiot for the things she asked him. Sometimes, instead, he would look marvelously embarrassed and stammer through an explanation of something rather emotional and private and complex. But he withheld nothing from her, no matter how difficult the explanation might be.

"You told that bloke he was wearing a 'Mark'" she remembered one day. They were sitting out on a Welsh beach and he was trying to keep the sun off his fair skin while she was trying to bake herself to a nice golden brown. He had built a rather attractive sand castle and people were stopping by to admire it occasionally, but mostly they were left alone to their respective sun worshipping and sun avoiding.

He turned bright pink and, even though her lessons on keeping their thoughts separate were coming along nicely, she still found herself blushing along with him in answer to it. "It's... complicated."

"Isn't everything?" she asked cheerfully. "I mean, it's you, yeah. If it wasn't complicated, it'd be strange instead, or something. C'mon, you can tell me. S'not like I'll advertise."

He nodded ruefully and looked out at the crowds around them. The double vision was abruptly back, and she could see a couple he had noticed, an older man and his lovely, older wife. The time strands that knotted around him were a bit ornate, more than normal for a human, but not so many as even Lady Thalia, whose were simplest among the Time Lord contingent, had. The wife's was singular and simple, but as far back as the Doctor could see, it was completely wrapped up in the husband's more complex strands. "She belongs with him," the Doctor said. "He has a lot of other things going on, but she is essential to who he is and who he'll be for the rest of his life. She's almost literally part of him. Someday, she'll die in his arms and he'll go on without her, but what he's become because he knows her and loves her, that won't change."

The Doctor turned and met her eyes and showed her something she'd never seen before, his own time traces, and she suddenly wondered why he found hers so fascinating. But the splendor and shining, starlight beauty of them wasn't what he was directing her attention to. Rather, he was showing her a thousand and one intersections, where the veritable cloud that surrounded her touched and brushed and diverted and played with his. "It's like this, in a way. Every life that touches another changes it, and lives that touch as ours have done become intertwined, so complex even I can't see what influences they have over each other. A Mark is more than that, though. It's a temporal concept, a conscious acknowledgment that the lives of Marked and Marker belong to each other. No one can tell who made the Mark, or when, because it exists in all time zones that a person touches."

"Did you...?"

"Yes," he admitted. "I... I_ had_ to do."

"Yes," she agreed.

He smiled. "Funny thing is, I can't see it now. I know I did it, but it's blended right in with those threads of yours. That's why I told our strange friend I'd have known if he was wearing mine - I wouldn't have, I'd've never seen it at all, but it's too complex a concept to explain. If by some chance one of those future Doctors had met you, he wouldn't realize you were even Marked. From what I understand, because it's temporal, that's the way it works. Because it would be a paradox. You've had that Mark from the beginning of your life, but I just put it there."

"I see what you mean about complicated, now," she said, shaking her head and pushing her hair out of her face.

"It'll offer you some protection for the rest of your life. If you're ever threatened by something that should know better, I'll know it on a visceral level, well below my sub-conscious. If by some chance we're separated, which ever incarnation of me is temporally closest to you will turn up."

"Weird. So I shouldn't get separated from you and threatened by - whatchacallit - 'higher life forms' - or I'll be meeting random Doctors for the rest of my life."

He chortled. "And I won't even know why..." He sobered abruptly and just held her hand like he never wanted to let go. "Except that I'll never forget you, so I suppose I will know why... you know what I mean. Anything that separated us would have to blot you out of my mind completely or I'd still be trying to reach you."

She nodded in acknowledgment and fellow feeling and just laid her head on his chest, listening to that double rhythm that was the very central fact of her life, now and always.

* * *

One afternoon while wandering around Cardiff, just talking, they stopped and listened to a couple of blokes busking on the street corner. The Doctor watched them in fascination, and Rose handed them some change when she finally got him to agree to leave.

"I want to do that," he said.

He wheedled and pleaded and coaxed and, laughing, she finally gave in and agreed to try their hand the next afternoon. So it was that she found herself at his side, blithely serenading the world.

Rose had finally gotten to teach him that song that felt like it was hers, theirs really, in some way, and he loved it. Their voices blended and rose and fell in exquisite harmony, joined minds making it easy and vaguely sexy to entwine their notes around each other.

"Singing with my wife," he announced. "Brilliant."

She laughed and launched into one of the Disney numbers he was fond of and a young woman gave her a handful of change afterward. "Your Welsh is perfect," the woman told her with a smile. "It's beautiful."

"Thanks," Rose said, and looked at the Doctor in confusion. He offered to explain later so she nodded and went on with her next selection.

She ended up with quite a sum by the time they got bored and gave it up. Most of it, she bundled up to hand over to a charity. One coin, however, she saved carefully. When they went by the fountain on the Plaza, she used it to make a wish, just because it seemed very important to her just now.

"I wish I could be with my Doctor forever," she whispered. Kissing the coin, she tossed it in, knowing she was mad to even think it. Still, she would never be able to help wishing.

"So what's with the languages?" she asked. "I noticed it before, with the Dryffidiads. One minute, I couldn't understand them, the next I could."

"I did it, that time. Even the lesser link allowed me to touch the linguistic centers and help your mind hear English instead... you'll hear English because that's what you think in. S'more complicated for me, I probably pick up fluency in a new language every couple of weeks."

"What's more complicated for you? You understand the language and I don't..."

"I don't always understand. But the capsule's got knowledge of all of time and space. Languages are easy for it. It translates in your head, telepathically, and you hear every word spoken as English, and see every word written as English. The capsules are very, very clever, in fact. If something's in another language that needs to be in that other language... for example, if everyone's speaking English, but they're using a Latin name for something, then the capsule can distinguish not to translate the Latin in that instance."

"You just enjoy giving me headaches," she accused cheerfully. "So gonna learn not to ask these complicated questions one day!"

"You will not," he replied. "I know you better than that. Besides, you're too clever for this to really confuse you for long."

She sighed. "You're right, I guess. So it's not just you in my head, it's the capsule, too. She made it so that woman heard me singing in Welsh because that's the language the woman does most of her thinking in."

"Very good, Rose Tyler. Very impressive."

"So what language do you hear and see?"

"Depends on the circumstance. Right now, I mostly get English."

"Is that 'cuz you're with me, or just because it's what you prefer?"

He shrugged. "Just like it, you know. Besides, trying to translate English into Gallifreyan leaves all kinds of wonky little gaps, where the specific meaning should be but isn't."

"Oh, yeah, right," she agreed. "Because it's mathematically perfect." She thought about it a moment. "Hey, what do you hear when you listen to music?" she asked.

He grinned at her like she was the most fabulous thing in the Universe. "Genius girl," he said proudly. "Sheer genius."

* * *

They did everything they could think of together, went out dancing one night, watched a match at the stadium one night, used that psychic paper to sneak backstage at a concert, saw everything there was to see in a simple place like Cardiff. They ate an awful lot of chips. They lounged around the ship and told each other stories and made love any time they felt like it.

They dug through the wardrobe and picked out wedding clothes, a tuxedo that fit him perfectly for the Doctor, a white dress for Rose. She decided, under the circumstances, to choose simple rather than going out to buy anything. There was this idea in her head that maybe ornate, elegant, well attended affairs could be arranged later. For now, what she wanted and what she thought suited her was something beautiful and not too difficult.

The dress she chose, in the end, was made of a finely woven white fabric that looked like gauze cotton and felt like spun moon beams. It made her look, she thought, like some kind of fairy princess. Nothing about it was ordinary, any more than anything about them was, but if someone only shot it a quick glance, they would mistake it for a simple white dress. Just as she and the Doctor had been mistaken for a simple young couple. Perfect.

They went out to dinner together on their last night, both of them nervous and excited and looking forward with such enormous hope to beginning their lives together with the morning sunrise, one week from now, tomorrow.

"I wish we could go see it," Rose said, while the Doctor described, in enthusiastic detail, the planet Barcelona and the dogs with no noses.

"We can't yet," the Doctor said with a sigh. "I don't dare step outside the range of this time track. It's so bizarre, the only thing I can risk is traveling up and down it. About a month on either side of the anomaly's closure is the sum total of it. If I get out of it, I don't know I'll be able to get back in. I'm not that good of a pilot for these things yet, you see."

"Someday, though. You'll be able to do absolutely anything you want to with one of these."

"Yep. Be awhile though, and I'll need ages of experience." He shifted in his seat. "For now, between the chameleon circuit acting up and the trouble Borusa was having with the ship, I'm just glad it worked at all. Mind you, I said before, I think it likes me. I'll land the capsule and pick up the rings sometime in the afternoon, then pop back to morning for the ceremony. Then we'll put the ship in the park and head back to the hotel. That way we can keep to the last of your human traditions, even if we have strained most of them."

"Which was that, then?"

"Can't see the bride before the wedding, right?" he said.

"Oh. Good point. Yeah, that'll work. But I just thought. What about witnesses? Because I know we originally wanted Zedric and Koschei, but they're busy keeping us out of trouble, I think. Aren't they?"

"Hum," he agreed. "Zedric offered to stand for me on Gallifrey - that's what he meant when he said we're brothers. It would have to be my brother and your mum there, closest living relatives and all that. More pack mentality."

"Unless you've got kids you don't know about," she teased.

He snorted. "It'd be possible on Gallifrey, but not likely. They can test a child to see what bio-data strands produced it, I think, something like that. Not sure exactly. Maybe it takes the first hit it gets and they can work with that, I dunno. But that's why I give them such fits, because they can't find my parents at all, they're not in the viable archive or even outside of it in any way that wouldn't be impossible."

"What's impossible for time travelers?" she wondered. "Maybe your parents haven't been born yet or something."

"Gallifrey is surrounded by a transduction barrier and the Eye of Harmony sets it outside of time as you understand it. Time still passes on Gallifrey, but it's like... it's sealed. There's one line to Gallifrey and only one, one temporal line that it exists on. So my parents can't come from the future because you can't go back into Gallifrey's past." His eyes grew distant with thought. "Well, maybe someone whose existence didn't depend on Gallifrey."

"Still not making a lot of sense, Doctor," she said. "Do you mean like... well, someone who spent so much time elsewhere that they mattered to someone else? Or more like someone who wasn't born on Gallifrey?"

"It'd have to be someone who wasn't born _to_ Gallifrey," he emphasized. "This one's giving me a headache." He chuckled ruefully. "Even other time travelers can't see Gallifrey's past, unless they jump time tracks and go with a Time Lord. You could go to my future with one of those other Doctors, maybe. Not sure. But it's done this way so nothing can interfere with Gallifrey. Gallifreyan time is absolute. The only people who can move through it would have to be either Gallifreyan Time Lords born before the Eye of Harmony was stabilized, in which case they wouldn't have the mastery of time travel they later acquired or, maybe if enough temporal energy was fed into the Vortex, people who exist independent of Gallifrey, like those few who retire on other worlds, they might could do it."

"That is so weird. So, you can run into yourself half a dozen times here on Earth, but it'd never happen on Gallifrey."

"Not without enormous interference. Even then, I'd be apt to destabilize. 'Course, I dunno. My existence may not depend on Gallifrey - no one knows where I came from, so it's possible, however unlikely, that I'm not a normal Time Lord."

"You're never going to be normal, Doctor," she told him. "And that's not a bad thing, either. Makes you special, makes you different."

"Makes me feel old before my time," he replied, grimly.

She laughed lightly. "Don't worry about it. Just think about our wedding, instead. What are we doing for witnesses?"

He shook his head to clear it of the enormous streams of calculations floating through it. "Right, well, I'll just get some people, I'm sure someone will be around who'd be willing to help."

"That's it then," she said. "I just need some flowers and we're done."

He nodded. "Doesn't matter about the flowers. You'll be the most beautiful Rose there."

She just giggled. "That was bad," she told him, tilting her lips to be kissed.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, I know." Then he leaned down and gave her that kiss, and it was perfect.

Tomorrow morning, then, she thought as she laid her head on the pillow in the room the capsule found for her. Only a few more hours, and she would be the bride of a Time Lord, the Doctor's partner. Her life would never be the simple domestic tranquility again, but no matter how strange or otherworldly or out of control it got, it would always be exactly what she wanted.


	29. Chapter 29

**_Marvin the Paranoid Android Disclaimer: You just had to, didn't you? Couldn't leave it well enough alone, no. Had to drag me into it, just because that silly human who supposedly invented me also worked for Doctor Who. Well, that isn't going to help you, and I'm certainly not going to help you. I've got this terrible pain in the diodes on my left side and I'm not doing anything until it is corrected. Since that will never happen - I keep requesting, but of course, no one ever listens - I'm afraid I'll never be available to assist a random Fan-fiction writers' takeover of Doctor Who or anything else in the realm of science fiction. Oh, the waste. Here I am, brain the size of a planet, reduced to making disclaimers in fan-fictions utterly unrelated to the works I'm usually forced to endure an appearance in. Am I getting you down? I'm not surprised..._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 29: The Wedding and the Witnesses**

The Doctor did exactly as he said he would do, went and picked up the rings, and then the capsule appeared at the time and location for the wedding. He informed her via the mind link that he had put a bit of a "notice me not" field on their rings and that way, she could wear hers on a chain around her neck without any odd questions. Since he could reinforce his psychically, he could wear it out in plain sight - her plain sight - and no one would notice. She was delighted, couldn't wait to wear the beautiful, slender platinum band they had selected, with it's gorgeous Gallifreyan lettering that looked like just decorative carving to anyone not in the know.

Rose got up that morning and took a bath, then changed into her lovely wedding dress. She wore her hair free and long, combed until it shone, with a small crown of flowers around her head, since he said Gallifreyan brides used to wear their hair down to show they came as innocent as children to their marriage. She wasn't innocent, not any more, but her intentions and her heart toward him were pure, and she felt the symbolism was right.

He went out into the street to find them some witnesses after a brief discussion with the gentleman who was going to marry them. She couldn't resist watching through his eyes, just to see how he handled it.

He looked around at the small number of early risers available in Cardiff at this time of day. Finally, he nabbed a couple who were, apparently, out for a very early morning constitutional. The whole exchange, though, turned completely surreal almost immediately.

"Hello," he said, giving them his most charming smile, "I'm the Doctor. I wonder if I might ask you for a favor."

The older gentleman studied him with a curious expression caught somewhere between exasperated humor and fond doubt. "Are you really?" he asked. His companion studied the Doctor's face, as if she was trying to make sense of it or something.

"Yes," assured the Doctor. "Have been all my life."

"Ah," said the gentleman, something of a conspiracy in the way he tilted his head and twiddled with his mustache. "And how long is that, then?"

The Doctor's thoughts and smile turned to mischief. "Dunno. Wasn't paying attention when it started, I was busy. Being born, you know how it is."

While the woman looked simply incredulous, the man threw his head back and laughed. "Typical," he pronounced. "Absolutely typical." He shook his head as if in resignation, then turned a warm smile on the Doctor. "What can we do for you today, Doctor?" he said, almost as if he was used to saying it and didn't expect the answer to exactly make sense.

Baffled by this admittedly strange behavior, the Doctor asked, "Have we met?"

"Obviously not," the man replied, and offered a hand. "I'm Alistair, this is my wife, Doris."

"Nice to meet you." The Doctor shook hands with both, a bit surprised at the older man's strong grip. After a second of them beaming at him, almost proudly, he tried to regain control of the situation. "About my favor..."

"Yes, of course, Doctor," said Doris, quite fondly. "Anything we can do to help."

"Brilliant! It's just... We're getting married this morning and we needed a couple of witnesses. I don't suppose you'd be willing to do that favor, would you?"

The couple looked at each other and the expressions on their faces made both Rose and the Doctor wonder if _they_ were aliens having a silent conversation in their heads. Finally, Alistair looked up and nodded. "It'd be an honor, Doctor. But I would like to meet your bride."

"Oh, sure," he agreed. "She's getting ready inside. If you'd like to come in?"

"Absolutely," Alistair said quietly.

The Doctor brought them to the room she'd been allowed to change in, where the capsule was parked, and she obligingly stepped into the loo, closing the door behind her, while he tapped on the outside door.

"C'mon in, Doctor," she called. "I'm not ready yet."

He stepped in and blinked nervously around, then gestured the couple in behind him. Alistair went immediately to the blue box and patted it as if it was something he was completely used to seeing in a bride's changing area. His wife just shook her head and looked pleasantly puzzled.

"Um... I'll wait outside," the Doctor suggested, and stepped out, closing the door quickly behind him, thinking to himself that he was relieved the box was locked.

Rose stepped out of the loo and smiled at them both, pretended that she hadn't already witnessed the introductions. "Hello," she said. "You must be the witnesses the Doctor found for us. I'm Rose Tyler."

"Doris," the woman replied, and offered her hand, though not, Rose noticed, her surname.

Her husband stepped forward and considered Rose with narrowed hazel eyes. He looked like a soldier to her, or a detective, maybe, someone who was used to making snap judgments based on a very short glance or two. "I'm Alistair," he said at last, and offered his hand. "Miss Tyler wasn't it? Delightful to meet you, young lady. Have you been with the Doctor long?"

"Feels like forever and no time at all," she replied, honestly. "Are you a friend of his?" The man had said they'd never met, but Rose wasn't supposed to know that, so she could pretend and, maybe, get clarification on his earlier vagary.

Alistair just smiled, looking a bit secretive in Rose's opinion. Doris turned to him with a curious, amused expression. "Alistair, you should go make sure the Doctor doesn't blow something up. I'll help Miss Tyler get finished."

Her husband inclined his head politely and left the room, leaving a bewildered Rose in his wake. Doris stepped forward and started straightening Rose's dress, making a fuss about her hair and the pretty bouquet the Doctor had conjured together for her from the capsule's garden.

Outside, her husband was even more interesting. "Doctor, your shoes have gotten a bit dusty, best clean them up." He stepped back and considered the Doctor as if doing an inspection. "And your tie isn't straight, either, son. How can you expect to give a proper impression without dressing well?" He gestured the Doctor into another room. He then proceeded to treat Rose's partner like his own child, making him polish his shoes and comb his hair. He straightened the Doctor's tie himself and, when he was satisfied, gave a curt nod. "That's got you ship shape, now, Doctor. Just have to wait for your blushing bride."

Rose drew her attention away from the link to fight down a sudden wave of butterflies, wreaking havoc in her stomach. Doris set her firmly in a chair and made her breathe, slowly, in and out, talking to her quietly and soothingly. "You must be very far from home," Doris said at last. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Rose said. "I've never been happier in my life. I'm more afraid something will go wrong."

"With the wedding?"

"I guess. I love him and he loves me and we're getting married, and it's just as mad as it is brilliant."

"How old is he?" Doris asked. "How old are you?"

"We're both eighteen," she lied. "Me, only just."

Doris smiled and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You're young and in love. It's beautiful, but you're going to have to work very hard to stay in love. Are you feeling better?"

"You're really good at this," Rose said, nervously, as Doris handed her a cup of water.

"I've had a bit of practice," the woman said, mysteriously. Rose wondered if the older couple had dealt with eloping couples before or something, because they both seemed to know just what to say.

Suddenly and irrevocably, it was time. The sun was just coming up through the window of the small room as Rose walked down the make-shift aisle. Twenty minutes and a lot of secular promises later, she was legally a married woman. The Doctor gave her a proper snog at the end of the ceremony, though she knew all his Time Lord instincts were telling him to make it short and chaste since they were in public.

The documents they signed listed him as "Theta Sigma" and her as "Mrs. Theta Sigma" - which didn't look half stupid on the page, and she never wanted to see that name again. She was Rose Tyler and he was the Doctor and they were man - albeit alien man - and wife.

She received a polite kiss on the cheek from both their witnesses. "Hope you can keep him in line half the time," the man said jovially. She thanked them both sweetly and they told them both how glad they were to be there. Then, hand in hand, the older couple left.

As they walked out, the Doctor heard Alistair say, "At least I didn't have to hear the whole thing this time. Not sure how it happened, but it couldn't be more appropriate. I might bring it up, next time."

The Doctor looked quizzically at the man's name on the witness line, but it meant nothing to him. Although, he privately admitted to Rose, it was a long and interesting name.

As they headed back into the capsule, they heard the next couple arriving. "...Don't understand this at all..." the girl was saying.

Rose smiled. Everyone was obviously nervous before their wedding, if the girl was anyone to judge by. Still, at least _she_ got to go on a honeymoon, next. Rose had to go and tell her mother what she'd done. She wouldn't wish this afternoon on her worst enemy.

* * *

But before they had to go and face the music, there was time for them, still. They changed clothes and put on running shoes and the Doctor parked the capsule exactly where and when he'd told Koschei he would put it. He triple checked everything, since this was a completely new experience for him and he needed to be sure there were no mistakes. He clicked on the viewer to be certain that they were unobserved, helped her move her newly acquired ring to a necklace of shiny silver the capsule provided for her, and then took her hand.

He opened the doors, closed them carefully behind him, and locked them. The police box had obligingly changed itself into a tree, complete with overarching foliage and roots that looked like they ran deep into the soil. It was so realistic, Rose knew she probably would have leaned on it without noticing the small notch in the bark the was the key hole.

Once that was done, her husband turned to her, that manic gleam in his beautiful eyes. "Run!"

Hand in hand, laughing and loving every minute of it, they headed for the hotel they'd left, a month ago, last night.

* * *

He carried her over the threshold of the room because that was how it was done. She laughed and pleaded to be put down, and he only conceded after he'd slapped up the 'do not disturb' sign on the door.

To her amusement, he insisted on a traditional "first dance". He turned on the radio and something cheery and enthusiastic came piping out of the speakers, not at all like what you'd dance a wedding dance to, but it was brilliant. She knew the song, though it took a few moments to place it.

Rose giggled while he tried for a serious expression. He couldn't manage it with her humor and joy bubbling up through them both as effervescent as the champagne they'd neglected to acquire. "What's got you, this time?" he asked.

"I've just married an alien from outer space!" she exclaimed around her laughter. "Married an alien and am having my first married dance to the tune of 'In the Mood'!"

He grinned and spun her around, then they moved in step together, gracefully, twirling around the furniture, separating, coming back together, just enjoying the way they felt together and the way the song surrounded them.

"I love it," she exclaimed as he dipped her. He'd learned that trick at one of the clubs they'd been to, and picked it up as easily as everything else.

"I love you," he replied, as he brought her up, close enough to kiss. Then, he repeated it, in the Gallifreyan this time, only adding the term "my partner" at the end. The meaning expanded even further, now, lending the words timelessness and agelessness and endlessness, including obligation and loyalty and contented commitment.

"I love you," she answered, the only words she had. "My Doctor, my husband."

Even though they'd consummated this relationship quite a few times since that day in the field a month ago, this first time as legally married seemed like something sacred to both of them. The joy of their union brought them both to tears and wonder and to the shared glory of a place they had never been.

* * *

They left the room to join Jackie for lunch, hand in hand, contented to be together and certain nothing could ever come between them. Rose was practically glowing with happiness and the Doctor was unable to keep the giddy grin from his face.

They practically danced into the hotel restaurant, happily oblivious to everything around them. A few words with the maitre d' had them escorted to the table where Jackie waited for them.

She wasn't smiling. In fact, if anything, she looked like a thunderhead was hovering over her. Rose stared at her mother in confusion and her mother's answering expression was sour enough to curdle cream. The Doctor tried one of his winning smiles. Jackie glared balefully at him and, following the cliche, if looks could kill, she'd've just planted him at least six times.

"What's happened?" Rose demanded, then turned to see what Howard thought of all of this. Only, when Jackie leaned back, the man sitting next to her wasn't Howard.

The Doctor stared at Jackie's escort in undisguised horror. "Ah," he managed finally. He looked back at Jackie and she shot him another killing look. "Oh, dear," he continued.

Rose could hardly believe this was happening. Not now, not like this; she wasn't ready, and it just wasn't fair. She opened her mouth, but the only thing that came out was, "Oh, bugger."


	30. Chapter 30

_**Sarah Jane Smith Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. I don't think it's actually possible to own him, even if he is...** :Question?: **Yes?** :You're still hung up on some bloke, right?: **Well, I... of all the confounded cheek. I've admitted it, haven't I?** :S'pose so, but are you sure it's the Doctor you're hung up on?: **What? What else do I have to do to convince you?** :Well, you see, the thing is, we've seen inside your attic.: **So? Bloody cameras...** :Yes, well, there's an awful lot of pictures of a certain bloke in there.:** I know that! What are you trying to say??** :It's not the Doctor.: **Get off it.** :No, seriously. None of the pictures are of the Doctor!: **Oh go away!! Bloody fan-fiction writer. I'll have you know that teasing me about... well, never mind, but it's still not going to make you the owner of Doctor Who.** :Wait and see...:_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

A/N: I am awarding a disclaimer of her own to a reader who figured out a key point of this fic before anyone else at all. It will appear at the top of the next chapter. Want to win one? Blind me! :grin:

* * *

**Chapter 30: The Beginning of the End**

Rose had never seen the man up close before, except in the Doctor's memories. She sank warily into the seat across from her mother and watched the man's cold, clever eyes studying every thing about her. She returned the favor and before long, she realized that she was something he hadn't seen coming. He hadn't planned for her and didn't know what to make of her.

But everything else...

The Doctor took a seat across from his tutor and returned the man's icy, haughty gaze with one of his own. Defiantly, though, when he spoke, he kept to the accent he'd acquired from Rose, expecting to elicit a reaction. "Fancy seeing you here," he said.

Lord Borusa just snorted and raised a curious eyebrow.

Rose turned to watch her mother's reactions, but couldn't get past the waves of fury rolling off the woman. "What's he said to you, Mum, 'cuz whatever it is, don't mean its true!"

Jackie looked at Borusa and rolled her eyes. "He's a good liar," she said, "I'll give 'im that." She glowered again at the Doctor. "But not half so good as himself over there."

"I've told no lies that I'm aware of, Jackie," the Doctor replied in a gentle voice. "I told you I'd always tell you the truth, even if you didn't want to hear it."

"You didn't tell me a damn thing, mister, and I don't even want to guess what you told my little girl."

"First of all," he shot back, "it isn't a lie to keep the truth to yourself. Second, I don't lie to Rose. I _can't_."

That got a reaction out of Borusa at last. He gasped and sat up straight and looked the Doctor in the eye. "Thete, tell me you didn't," he said in a darkly cautioning tone.

"So you're _asking_ me to lie?" the Doctor snapped back. Anxiously, he ran his free hand through his hair. The other one had never left Rose's. "Look, no one can lie to Rose, it can't be done. There, now, that's half the truth. Is everybody happy? 'Cuz I'm not half starved."

"Theta Sigma, you are a disgrace," Borusa snapped.

"Proud of it," the Doctor told him coldly.

Borusa probably didn't hear him because Rose picked that exact moment to round on the older man fiercely. "Don't call 'im that, it ain't his name and it's not right!"

Borusa blinked at her in astonishment. "And who are you, little urchin, to tell me how to address my wayward pupils?"

She was going to tell him she was said wayward pupil's wife, but her mum interrupted before she could drop that little bomb. "Don't you dare call my daughter an urchin, you pompous bastard," Jackie Tyler snapped. Then, grimly, strangely, she muttered, "This is all your fault, some how, I'm sure of it."

Rose had a nasty suspicion all of the sudden and when the look Borusa gave her mother wasn't angry but strangely a little fond, she felt her brain trying to short out. All she could think back to was talking to her mum about a bloke she'd picked up at the pub, last night. The Doctor turned to her, his eyes huge with horror and confusion. She nodded grimly.

He started laughing. Helpless, merry notes tumbled from his lips. He tried to stop them, pointing at Borusa to begin something, but more laughter bubbled up and all he managed was, "You..." before he was gone again.

Rose grinned and leaned in close to him, drawn in by his practically hysterical hilarity. He looked down at her with pride and wonder and the laughter slowly died. She touched his face with her free hand and he turned his head to kiss her palm.

Then, he looked up at Borusa, intent to say something pithy and insulting, but the expression of consternation, bewilderment, and ill-disguised embarrassment on the older Time Lord's face set him off again. Rose gave her mum a scathing glance, just to check, and the woman blushed over her entire face.

That set Rose off, and there wasn't enough fear in the Universe to stop her and the Doctor from laughing in the face of despair.

* * *

After a few moments, the young couple managed to calm themselves enough to insist that they might as well order something to eat, since that was what they came for. They spent the meal in a strange sort of wariness, Rose studying Borusa, the Doctor glowering at him, Jackie glowering at the Doctor, and Borusa mostly acting as if only Jackie was actually there. He was very solicitous of her, but then Rose suspected he owed her a lot for this nightmare set up.

She tried to keep the feeling of being betrayed at bay and made it through lunch by instead focusing on the stilted conversation the Doctor was carrying on with his tutor when the silence got to him.

"Where are the others?" he asked.

"Back at the capsule. You'll make an excellent pilot when you're older, I'm sure."

Attempted compliment, Rose totted up.

"I'm an excellent pilot now," the Doctor said some moments later, "as long as the capsule's worth piloting."

"That one will be decommissioned after this. It's been nothing but trouble. Like some Postulants I could name."

Scarcely veiled threat, Rose noted.

"Leave the others out of this, they had nothing to do with it."

"You will all be treated in accordance with your actions," Borusa replied, "as is custom for Prydonians."

Reminder of his duties, and a definite threat, this time, Rose added to her list.

"Koschei and Zedric should be left alone," the Doctor reiterated some few moments later. "They only acted because of me."

"And they will be disciplined because of you," was Borusa's cold remark. "Appropriate."

He'd also overplayed his hand, Rose realized immediately, even if Borusa, or even the Doctor didn't know it yet. There was no way the Doctor was going to take a threat to his friend and his brother sitting down. He wasn't like that, didn't want anyone to get caught in the crossfire partly. Mostly, though, it was because he loved them both too much to endanger their future for his own sake. Borusa, who didn't seem to understand about the Doctor's love for other people, also didn't seem to realize that, in threatening them, he'd given the Doctor all the encouragement he needed to make this as difficult for his tutor as he possibly could.

The Doctor pushed his plate away and waved for the check. He sat calmly and filled it out, signed his pseudonym and caught her hand as they stood up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Borusa asked, not rudely but with a curiosity that was interested, but feigned indifference.

"You're not going anywhere alone with my little girl," Jackie interrupted rudely.

Oh, God, that was it. "Mum, I'm not listening to you any more, do you get me? I'm not. There's no good to it."

"Rose..." her mother started.

"No," she snapped. "I'm done! You came here and you let that wanker beat you up for whatever reason I can't begin to imagine. The Doctor saved you, Mum, he rescued you and sent Chris packing and took care of me and you both. He didn't ask anything in return, not even that you trust him, just promised you he'd never lie to you, and you believed him and now you don't."

"You don't understand, Rose!" Jackie's protest was shrill but quiet.

"I do understand! I do." Rose swiped quickly at the angry tears on her face, then continued talking in a low, furious tone. "You think I'm just a little girl. You'll think that when I'm forty, so I'm not bothered. But you're gonna take the word of some poisonous old snake over the man who saved your life and what's more, you gave us both to him."

Her mother looked decidedly horrified but also furious at that statement, but Rose ignored the way her mouth opened. Her mum could probably deliver a blistering tirade at any second, but Rose wasn't going to listen. "You're my mother and you're supposed to protect me, but how do you know what this pervert's got in mind for us, eh? Maybe something like that last one had in mind for me, too, you just don't know. You don't, you just handed us in because you got scared. I'm not half sick of the sight of you right now, and I can't help it. You - my own mother - you did this. To me. Not just to him, to me!"

She turned away in disgust and leaned against the Doctor. He reached up and brushed the tears she'd missed from her cheeks. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Jackie stood up, her face red, her hands on her hips. "Now, you just listen to me, miss. You got no idea what's going on around here. This is adult business and you're just a little girl. A sixteen year old kid whose got some daft idea in her head about some kind of happily ever after. They don't happen, Rose. God, don't I know that?"

"I'm sorry!" Rose exclaimed, then toned her volume down. "It wasn't my fault he died. I was a baby, Mum!"

"I never said I blame you!" Jackie defended, sitting back down and dragging Rose to a chair as well. "God, where'd you get an idea like that?"

"If you hadn't had me to look after, he'd've never had to go get that vase. I know all about that, ok, I'm not stupid. But just because you couldn't keep him doesn't mean I can't have love, does it?"

Jackie looked like she wanted to argue the point some more but stopped suddenly when she realized where they were. She seemed more embarrassed that they had witnesses than anything, which surprised Rose because they were from the Estate. Everyone always knew everyone's business, no matter what. The walls were all too thin and everyone lived crowded on top of everyone else. Rose decided, once again, that Borusa was the problem. The Doctor was considering them both with such gentle, sincere sympathy that no one could think he didn't belong.

Abruptly, Jackie shook herself. "This isn't the point in any of this," she said. "The point is I know what's going on and you don't, and you'll do as I tell you because I'm your mother."

"I'm old enough to know what I want for my life!" Rose said. She got up from the chair again and took her husband's arm, pointedly ignoring her mother and walking a few steps away, her nostrils flared, her hands fighting to keep from clenching into fists.

"You're just a baby, Rose, and you're not safe," her mother insisted to her retreating back.

Rose rounded on her, glaring and daring the woman to say anything else. "I'm perfectly safe," she answered coldly, gesturing at Borusa. "He's the only one of us that can't be trusted."

The Doctor smirked at her. "Oh, you can trust him, all right, Rose," he corrected. "To always do whatever suits him to achieve whatever goal he has in mind. What is it this time?"

"We'll go together," Borusa decided. "I think it's time we all had a talk."

They returned to the suite that had been the site of such joy and would now be the site of pain and revelations. Jackie bustled into the kitchenette and did what she always did in a crisis: she made tea.

"Don't know if you bloody aliens even like tea," she muttered angrily as she came out with four mugs.

Oh, so he had told her some of the truth. The Doctor shook his head. "I liked tea the other day, Jackie. Just because you know I'm from another planet now doesn't mean I turned into a different person."

"Yet!" Rose exclaimed with a giggle.

He grinned and rolled his eyes. "Cheeky girl," he said fondly.

"You love it."

"Love you," he corrected, for emphasis.

"Children," said Borusa, firmly, "we have a discussion to continue. I expect there are certain things that need to be explained. I should like you, Miss Tyler, to explain your comment downstairs. How am I meant to address the boy if the name he has answered to for more than a century is insufficient to you?"

"Pervert," Jackie told the Doctor contemptuously.

"You know, Jackie, if he told you the age difference, he might also could have told you he's over seven hundred years old himself."

"Do what?" asked Jackie, confused.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I'm still an older adolescent by my people's standards, Jackie. Just like Rose. The age difference is an arbitrary number. Anything else you told her just to upset her, Lord Borusa?"

"He told me enough. You're a century old alien from some planet in outer space where we're not even allowed. And all this time, you've been leading my little girl on about all this, I'm sure. I'm ashamed, Doctor, to think I trusted you." Borusa flinched, for some reason Rose couldn't pin down - she was too busy trying to correct her mum's misapprehension.

"Know when he told me he was over a century old, Mum?" Rose said. "About a half hour after I met him. I knew he was an alien before the day was over. He's still beautiful and he still loves me and that's more than enough. I still love him. That's all there is to it."

"This is getting us no where," Borusa interrupted.

"You're right," the Doctor proclaimed decisively. He reached out and snagged a mug of tea. He sat back on the sofa and his small, slender form seemed to dominate the room. "I think there are some things you need to tell me, Lord Borusa."

"Very well, Doctor." He acknowledged the title with only a bit of a sneer. "What would you like me to tell you?"

The Doctor smiled but it didn't touch his blue eyes. "'Begin at the beginning,'" he quoted, "'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'"

Borusa rolled his eyes and it looked very strange on his narrow face. "Very well," he agreed and took a cup of tea.

Rose thought he added rather too much lemon, but then it went perfectly with the sour expression on his face. Impatient and not half annoyed, she put her head on the Doctor's shoulder and waited for the older man to begin.


	31. Chapter 31

_**cordelia-lear Disclaimer: Listen, no matter how much time I spend dissecting this author's work, neither she nor I hold any claim to Doctor Who. Pity, that. If I did have any power over the BBC, rest assured our Ms. L'Rynn would be head writer, and RTD would be my personal coffee boy. What's that Rusty? You want to write for the show? Well, I guess you shouldn't have separated Rose from the Doctor. Now, I'll have three sugars, no cream.**_

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

cordelia-lear won her own disclaimer by figuring out something before any one else. Want to win one? Blind me with your brilliance.

* * *

**Chapter 31: Revelations**

"You noticed the anomaly," the Doctor began, when it became obvious that Borusa could sit there glowering at him all day without saying a word. "When?"

"You went outside the capsule very shortly after we arrived to get that soil sample you wanted so much. The anomaly began to form a mere instant after you set foot on the planet."

"I didn't notice it."

"Of course you didn't, Doctor." Borusa's smile oozed condescension. "You were part of it, child. The very nature of the anomaly meant that it hid itself from you until the correct moment."

"But you knew it was there and that I was part of it." The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, that took genius, that did," he added sarcastically. "So you moved the capsule. Did you deliberately damage it?"

"Be serious, boy. I didn't have to do. That capsule is old, the very last Type-40 in existence. I chose it purely because it has the largest amount of free space on the data banks. The newer models don't have that kind of memory storage, which may be their one design flaw."

"It's a very nice ship," Rose blurted.

"You've been on his spaceship?" Jackie demanded.

Rose grinned. "It's beautiful inside, Mum, you should see it."

"That may prove necessary," Borusa commented thoughtfully. He turned back to the Doctor then, and the smug smile was back in place as if it had never left. "I allowed you to leave. I knew, sooner or later, your very nature would draw you back to the anomaly. I intended to monitor you."

The Doctor grinned. "Couldn't do it, could you? The capsule got completely out of control and you had to sit up with it."

Borusa nodded tersely. "It was unfortunate that the chameleon circuit failed at that particular moment. Still, you were gone, and Zedric with you. I expected the boy to seek you out - you should have needed his particular skills to ascertain the nature and the location of the anomaly. Koschei was sent by Lady Thalia and, while his presence jeopardized the plan, the boy is unusually willing to risk himself for you."

"So what went wrong?"

Borusa looked thoroughly sulky at this point. He apparently hadn't realized the Doctor knew this part. Rose shook her head. It was like watching a chess match between the two best players on the planet, every move precisely calculated and weighed, every decision thought through at least three steps ahead. "I should have thought that would be obvious."

"Rose?" the Doctor questioned, his expression full of pride and contentment as he smiled down at her.

"Leave her out of this!" Jackie commanded. "She's just a little kid."

"She's perfectly safe," the Doctor promised. "I'd do anything to protect her, Jackie." His eyes stared into the older woman's, his expression firm and unyielding. "Anything."

"I can look after myself," Rose added. "I'm not a kid, I'm old enough to make my own choices. So thanks, all of you, but I know what I want."

"She was unanticipated," Borusa interrupted, as if none of them had ever spoken. "As was the sheer size of the paradox field." The older man shook his head. "Only you could possibly have generated a paradox of this magnitude. This time line should have gone unstable and collapsed. Two or three manifestations of your future would have been simple. Five, at the most, the capsule could have drawn energy from that Rift to stabilize the Vortex around. But if I'm not terribly mistaken, a dozen representatives have been through here."

"That's what the time traces around the anomaly indicated," the Doctor agreed. He smiled suddenly. "Did you speak to any of them?" he asked, cheekily.

"Absolutely not," replied Borusa, a look of disgust apparent on his face. He stood up and stole an apple from the fruit bowl, polishing it on a handkerchief he conjured from somewhere. He looked at the lone banana in annoyance and rolled his eyes, then came back to his seat, giving a great, weary, put-upon sigh. "I would never bend the Laws set down by Rassilon, Doctor. To speak to your future is to speak to my own."

The Doctor's grin never left his face. "One of them cornered you and told you off."

"A singularly annoying individual with hair longer than you wear it now," Borusa admitted grimly. "You do not improve with age."

"Aw, and now you've just admitted that all your hard work's gonna get you no where."

Rose laughed, she just couldn't help it. "Maybe he'll let you be, now, Doctor."

"Doubt it," the Doctor replied. "Never leave well enough alone, do you? You employed one of the local anomalies to make certain I did what you wanted."

"It had to be done, and it had to be done by you, Doctor. But now that the anomaly is closed, we must leave. We have been too long from Gallifrey already. There will be questions."

"I could run," the Doctor told him. "Even now, with you sitting here, I could get out of here and you'll never find me."

"I do not wish to see you try. I've grown quite weary of this place, although admittedly, the inhabitants are endearing."

Jackie gave him a look that was part humor and mostly embarrassment. The Doctor shook his head to stave off the interruption. "If you promise me to leave Zedric and Koschei out of it, we'll come quietly. Otherwise, I might have to make a nuisance of myself."

"A greater nuisance than usual," Borusa corrected, and turned a smile on the Doctor that was actually quite fond. "Very well. Gather your things."

The Doctor studied his face for several moments and then nodded. Saying nothing further, he took Rose's hand, led her through to the bedroom, and shut the door behind them. Jackie might have bellowed at them to give it up and come out of there, but they ignored her.

* * *

"They still don't know," Rose said. "Why aren't we telling them?"

The Doctor sighed. "I need to protect you. I have to make sure that there's nothing Borusa can do to hurt you before he finds out about the Mark. It's the one bit of security we have for certain." He flung things haphazardly into his bag, Earth things and things he'd brought with him alike.

"I meant about us being married," she said and began tossing her clothes into her own bag.

The Doctor stopped what he was doing, looked up at her, and winked. "Every time we try to bring it up, we get interrupted. I think that means it's not time yet."

"You don't believe in fate," she said sternly.

He grinned back and tipped a few of her things out of his bag and into hers. "I know. It's not fate, it's timing, which is as essential as breathing to my kind. Timing is special to us. For example, this Mark. Borusa should be able to see it, but he isn't paying enough attention because of timing. And because it's hidden so well in your time traces."

"Yeah, well, having seen them - ta - I have to say you could hide a lot of problems with them. Zedric hid all three of us, after all."

"Yeah, I could," he said, stopping completely, standing to his full height, and looking down at her. There was awe in his face and emotions, and fear clenching at his stomach. She suddenly worried that something was terribly wrong.

"What is it?" she asked, brushing his face with her hand and smiling at him. "Doctor, anything you need, I'm glad to do it."

"I... there's a secret that's mine and I can give it to you. You can keep it for me for as long as you exist and it will stay a secret. But it's dangerous."

"Doctor, I won't live long enough for it do any good, will I?"

"Not just your life, Rose. Your existence. Every time trace on you touches others. There are almost infinite possibilities around you, and for as long as Time exists that you have touched in some way, the secret will remain secure. Even I won't be able to tell it, except to save someone's life."

"So you won't just be telling me this secret, you'll be giving it to me. Like in Harry Potter." She shook her head and chuckled ruefully at the probably daft comparison. "I'll be your secret-keeper." He might not even know what that was.

The Doctor grinned. "We have the whole set in the Prydonian archives. They're considered some of the greatest literature in the galaxy. Mind, we also have Green Eggs and Ham, as I mentioned before, but still. A secret-keeper is sort of an apt comparison. I never thought of it before. I wonder if she knew a Time Lord."

"The whole set?" Rose exclaimed, wide-eyed. "Oh my God, is Snape really evil?"

"Now, Rose." he chided gently. "This is important. No taking advantage of your status as a time-traveler's wife."

"You'll get them for me when we get to Gallifrey though, won't you?" she pleaded.

He laughed and nodded. "Yes, I will. So, will you be my secret-keeper, then, my love?"

"Any time."

"Don't even tell anyone you have the secret, all right? It's not quite the same, you see. I'm still the only one who can give it out, but you're the one keeping it secure. As long as no one knows you have this, you're safe."

She nodded and waited. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, concentrating and stilling himself to speak something he had never actually spoken before in his life. Her eyes widened to realize that it was that important as he lowered his head right next to her ear.

He whispered a word, such a beautiful, magnificent, perfect word. She stared at him, struck briefly dumb with wonder. "Is that..."

"My name." He nodded, eyes sparkling into hers. "And I will never be able to speak it again, not unless it will save the life of the person I tell. Hard to imagine any circumstance that could involve, but..."

She tried it out and loved the way it felt on her tongue. He looked at her like he always did, only more so, like he would never see anything more precious in all his life. But he shook his head. "Never do that again," he cautioned. "You're only safe as long as no one ever knows."

"How can your name be so dangerous?" she asked. "It's... my God, it's breathtaking."

"I... I don't even know," he admitted. "My father..."

"Oh," she said, as the scene he remembered played, half-real, through their link. "Oh, Doctor, that's terrible. And so beautiful. I'll keep it, I promise."

His lips covered hers and she fell into the kiss, savoring it like it was the last time. The doors in her head flew open, even that one they kept closed, and she was abruptly drawn inside his mind. That one door, the one that was supposed to stay closed, slowly opened the tiniest crack. Tendrils of light and shadow floated forth, weaving themselves around the golden light that was her representation in his mind.

They spiralled through and through, those tendrils, binding the secret to her reality, sealing his name up, forever, inside her soul. She would never speak it again, never hear it again, but that was better, because she had given him his name, the one that belonged to him, that would save him and guard him and hide him for the rest of his life.

He withdrew from her mind slowly, and their embrace even more reluctantly. "When the time is right," he assured her, "we tell them that we're partners. They have to know, but I think it's best we keep some of our cards close to our chests." He rocked back on his heels and grinned suddenly. "When we get the chance, you have to teach me how to play poker. It has such lovely figures of speech."

She grinned and nodded and they went back to their packing, the link between them more secure than ever.

* * *

The walk back to the capsule wasn't fun. Borusa was condescending, the Doctor was nervous, and Rose was trying very hard not to be frightened. Jackie was trailing after the lot of them, hissing like an angry goose.

Rose went inside first, feeling strangely relieved to be back inside the familiar environs of the ship she had grown to love so quickly.

Borusa stopped outside the door. "I need to ascertain that your daughter will come to no harm from this, Jackie. Please calm yourself and I promise you things will work out as we have discussed."

The Doctor rounded on him. "What the hell does that mean?" he demanded.

"Get inside, Doctor," Borusa insisted, a cold threat in the words. "Now."

It was all the warning she had. Rose found herself seized in a vice-like grip by the small older woman who she'd seen last night - a month ago. She fought the hands on her arms, but the woman was a lot stronger than she looked. "No one's going to hurt you, girl," the woman snapped.

"Let me go!" she shrieked, absolutely convinced of imminent danger.

The Doctor burst into the room, eyes blazing, hands clenched into fists. "Borusa!" he bellowed, and Rose was gratified to see the older man flinch. "Release her, now."

Borusa nodded to the woman, as if he'd confirmed something he already suspected. Thalia let Rose go, but not before she ran some sort of scanning device over Rose's body.

"Undo this, Doctor," Borusa ordered. "Let the girl go."

"No!!" Rose protested. Something, something horrible and insidious was creeping into her mind, slithering dark, icy tendrils along the places where she was bound to the Doctor. She screamed and sobbed, clutching at her head in an attempt to stop the brutal, ripping sensation. Her body gave in to the only thought she could make sense of at the moment. _Get to the Doctor._

Her feet moved practically of their own accord, carrying her around the console, away from the other Time Lords. Jackie snatched at her, but Rose evaded her mother's grip and threw herself into the Doctor's arms. "Don't do it, please don't do it," she begged pitifully. "My Doctor, please..."

The Doctor looked down at her and shook his head. "I'd never," he promised. "Never ever." He tilted her face up with a tender hand, and then his strength and love and towering presence wrapped around her, comforting, shielding, protecting. The foul, aching intrusion receded slowly. She clung to him, threw all of herself into holding on to him. "Don't let go, Rose," he whispered. "Don't ever let go."

His eyes met Borusa's and his stance dared the older Time Lord to try to come between them. He held Rose, her head cradled against his chest, letting her listen to the thunder of his pounding hearts.

"Doctor, please, you have to let her go," Jackie begged.

"I _will_ not." That was how the capsule translated what he said. But he'd spoken it in Gallifreyan and it was full of deeper meanings, meanings that elicited a gasp from Thalia and made Borusa's face go white.

"You've got two choices for this," said another voice. Rose turned abruptly and beamed at Koschei, where he stood, leaning against the interior door, fingers tapping out a lazy beat along the door frame. She could have kissed him herself. "If you keep going the way you are, you'll kill them."

"This has to end, now," Borusa informed Koschei, icily.

The Doctor smiled triumphantly, his vivid eyes just a little bit mad. "It will never end," he replied.

"Doctor, you are irrational," Borusa declared.

"Borusa, I have never been more serious in my life. Rose stays with me."

"You can't keep her," insisted Lady Thalia.

The Doctor laughed, a cold, dark, dangerous sound that made everyone but Rose cringe. "Hide and watch."


	32. Chapter 32

**_Jenny Disclaimer: Hi, I'm Jenny, a Child of the Machine. I don't own Doctor Who and neither does the fan-fiction writer. Dad does, I think. Or maybe Doctor Who owns him. Not sure. There seems to be this really huge gap in my knowledge about - oh, everything. But that's ok, because I'm my father's daughter and I can figure things out as I go. He's a genius, and I came from him. So really, right now, I think I'd like to do some running. Running's good. I'm going to start by running from a fan fiction writer before she catches up to me and asks me why I'm so good at gymnastics, since I don't seem to have a bronze medal for them from the Jericho Street Junior School under-sevens. Whatever that means. Oh, and it wasn't a regeneration. That means changing your face if you're Gallifreyan, and I'm still blue-eyed and blonde. Look like my dad in his fifth incarnation, for some reason. Go figure._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

A/N: KS, as per your request.

* * *

**Chapter 32: What the Future Holds**

"Let me tell you what will happen, Doctor," Borusa began softly. "If you take her back to Gallifrey, she will die."

Jackie sobbed and moved towards Rose. Instead of trying to pry her daughter away from the Doctor this time, she simply set herself between Rose and the others, as if she needed to hear this more than her daughter did.

"I can protect her," the Doctor protested, his voice cracking as tears started in his eyes. "She'll be safe with me."

"I'm sorry," Borusa replied softly, and he sounded genuinely remorseful as he said it. "You've no protection yourself, Doctor. No House claims you, you've no sponsor. One old Hermit who lives in the mountain knows you exist outside of Prydon Academy. Be reasonable, Doctor, please. Hear me out. Koschei can stay. Two humans, two students, two instructors. That's fair, isn't it?"

The Doctor looked at Koschei, who slowly nodded, his gray eyes hollow. He tilted his head down to look at Rose. She nodded, too, confident in him, certain that all this could work out, some how, even now. Finally, the Doctor relented, and the fire in his eyes was banked, as well as being drowned by tears that streamed down his cheeks. "She won't die," he tried to insist. It turned out as more of a plea.

"She will," Borusa told him, talking softly, as if to a very young child. "I'm sorry, but they'll find her and they'll kill her. Humans aren't permitted on Gallifrey - do you know why?"

"Koschei said it's because they're a danger in the future."

"That's right, both of you, ten of ten."

Koschei and Rose both rolled their eyes.

"In the future, they represent unimaginable danger to Gallifrey and as a result, a human being found on Gallifrey will be killed out of hand, for no reason other than her blood. It won't be possible to hide her."

"You could help," Koschei suggested blithely.

"I could not. I would not."

"It isn't permitted," said Lady Thalia. "Even if Lord Borusa stood for her, other elements in our society who have no reason to respect him could act against her. You couldn't keep her protected at all times, Doctor, it simply would not work."

"Then I'll stay with her, here. No one needs to know." The Doctor smiled beatifically. Koschei looked shaken by this statement, and Jackie even more so. "You already said I don't exist outside of Prydon Academy. Just wipe the record. Then I can stay with Rose."

Rose knew that couldn't happen. They'd already seen the future - he was a Time Lord in that future, not some anonymous bloke who happened to turn up in Cardiff. Would it be a paradox to change that future?

She had no idea. But she worried at her bottom lip with her teeth as Borusa began again to speak, as if gentling a wounded animal.

"She will turn into an old woman before your very eyes, Doctor. She is human. Right now, she is so very young and fair and her innocence is precious in your sight. But you will age slowly, grow into a man, and thence to middle age. Meanwhile, she will become an old woman, her fair skin like parchment, her bones as fragile as spun glass. Her bright eyes will grow weak and watery. You will watch all of this, as your Rose blooms and then fades right in front of you."

Rose felt her stomach clench, felt her heart throbbing in her chest. She knew this, the Doctor knew this. They understood. Did he have to, did he have to be so utterly cruel?

"That's assuming she lives long enough to grow old. You'll be an alien on this world, Doctor, and things will threaten you. They'll threaten you through her and they'll threaten all you love. The lines on her face will not be laugh lines, but lines of worry. You won't be able to give her stability or safety. She'll be running with you until one day, perhaps, she will fall."

Jackie gave a bitter sob and collapsed to her knees. Rose was shivering in her shoes to hear such vicious pronunciation of her fate. The Doctor watched Borusa talk, his eyes streaming, his hands trembling as he held Rose so tightly, as if his touch alone could hold off her death and such a bitter fate.

"And this is only the twenty-first century. There are diseases here that cannot be defeated by the most heroic measures of their medicine. Even if you intervene, even if you find others to interfere, one of her native plagues could carry her away from you between one hearts beat and the next and no power of yours could stop it."

Rose turned away from the Doctor's chest to tell the old man to shut it, that she'd heard enough, that she didn't want to hear any more about it. But then she caught the look in the Time Lord's eyes. It was fear, such a very great fear. Her voice stilled in her throat, her words died before they reached her lips. He continued as if he hadn't even noticed her.

"And then you will live, Doctor. Alone, you will carry on, isolated from your people, orphaned more thoroughly than even you have ever been."

Koschei's head shot up at this announcement and he tried to catch the Doctor's eyes, but the Doctor would not look away from Borusa, who calmly and bitterly spoke the Doctor's future like an elegy.

"You will walk this world, alone, without family, without a home, and hands everywhere will be turned against you. You will be an unnatural creature here, Doctor, an alien thing that does not belong. You will become a broken old man, separated from her by something you once had power over - Time itself - and you will live in misery until you die."

Now, she had to speak, had to beg it to stop. He was right, he was horrible, and she hated him so very, very much, because he was right. She couldn't let this happen, not to her husband, not to her beautiful, shining, stormy Doctor.

"And then," Borusa went on, as if he hadn't already said enough, "it will start again. Twelve times. How many millennia will it go on? Not a Time Lord, and not a human, and never able to touch the power that is yours by right, and never able to touch the girl who is yours by her own choice. How strong is your will, Doctor, that you can blithely accept a fate worse than damnation?"

"STOP IT!!" Rose shrieked. "Just stop!" She didn't even bother with the tears on her face, just let them flow. She swore at Borusa quite colorfully, borrowing words that popped into the Doctor's mind where she had none. "Oh, God, I hate you, you miserable old bastard," she told him, finally, and collapsed, the Doctor's arms around her the only thing holding her up.

She cried into his chest and he lowered his head to the top of hers and cried with her. Grief and fear and agony flowed from her with the tears. She couldn't do this to him, she just couldn't. She couldn't let him do this to himself.

At last, when the trembling in his body stilled, when the tears had all run dry, she looked up and met the Doctor's eyes with her own. In them she saw so many things, but one of them was the aching despair she'd seen when he first told her how lonely he had been all his life. He was still determined, still so devoted to her that even this would not stop him. If it was the right thing, he would do it. God, but Borusa knew him too well. Worse, the conniving old charlatan knew _her_ too well. She hoped fiercely that some day the old man had to suffer unspeakably for one of his manipulations.

Finally, she spoke. "Just... just give us a minute," she requested. "Just... we need some time." She kept tight hold to the Doctor's hand and moved toward the door to the interior.

Her mother's arms reached for her plaintively. "I'm sorry, Mum," she whispered. "We... we need time. Just... you wait, here. We'll be back, soon."

"All right, Rose," her mum surrendered softly. "Take all the time you need."

"Hah," said Rose, bitterly. "Jumped-up, bastard Lord of Time over there," she gestured rather obscenely in Borusa's direction, "and he's right bloody useless for managing it."

Even the Doctor managed a faint smile at that one.

* * *

The very first thing she did when they reached the privacy of the room they had claimed as theirs during their stay was lock the door behind them with the lock the capsule provided, apparently at her silent request.

The next thing she did was throw all her clothes on the floor. If it was going to happen like this, if it really had to end on such a bitter note for however long, then she was going to make sure he had her touch and her love and her mortal human desire to sustain him through the coming isolation.

He followed her meaning very well, but he was a genius, so she expected nothing less of him. They didn't have much time, regardless of what her mother thought, but they were young. Their bodies were up to rough, desperate, frightened collision, expressing passion that burned them alive and love that flowed so deeply it was etched onto their very souls.

With determination that almost frightened her, she touched him every where, caressing his body from the tips of his toes to the top of his head, engraving the feel and taste and smell of him into her mind as the only correct fit that her own body would ever have. He did the same with relentless care, snatching her breath as if to borrow moments of her life to paint himself into them.

He was hers, he belonged to her, and she would be his for as long as she lived. It wouldn't matter how many years passed before he came back to her, because she would be his again as soon as he took her hand. Her heart was his home, after all, the only home he could call his own, and nothing Lord Borusa could say or do would change that fact.

Lying together, gasping, and still so full of aching longing, she told him why, in words, even though he had to know, existing inside her skull as he did. "You're a time traveler and you can come back for me. It doesn't matter how long it takes, because I'll still be here."

He smiled, at last, that beautiful smile that had stolen her heart from the very first. "I will come for you, my Rose." He quoted gently, "'Though it were ten thousand miles.'"

"Or ten years or ten centuries."

He chuckled ruefully. "It won't be ten centuries, I can't imagine I'd ever want to wait that long. But when we're older, I'll be back for you."

"And love me still, I hope," she said.

"Oh, always," he assured her. "That won't change, even if I do."

She frowned. "Oh, I didn't even think!" she gasped out. "You might look different. How will I know it's you?"

He smirked. "Well, no one else will be able to tell you about that precious little noise you make. But assuming I grow some manners, or in case I forget some things, just remember one thing, and it is very important, Rose. Because you are special and you do stand out. But if he doesn't have a time machine, don't go with him, because it won't be me."

"Right," she agreed. "The only alien I love will have a ship that also travels in time."

"I'll take you so many places, Rose. We'll go every where, see everything." He frowned. "Are you sure you'll want that kind of life, though? Because if I do steal a capsule to come for you, I'll definitely have to leg it."

"If I wanted a boring life on the Council Estates, Doctor, I would have run away when you said you were an alien. Not me. I'm just not going to be a beans-on-toast, mortgages, house-with-carpets sort of girl. But you could have all that, you know. Tell Borusa what we've done, he can undo it, and you can walk away and live a nice, normal life on your beautiful planet."

"Sorry," he said. "It's not happening. I'm not the sort to do domestic, anyway."

"Good," she said. "Because I love you just as you are, my Doctor, just as you'll always be."

"Oh, Rose," he whispered, sounding hurt, and defeated, and hopeful at the same time. "Oh, I love you, too."

"So much for happily ever after," she said, so bitterly, the tears stinging her eyes again, even though she'd honestly thought she had no more tears to shed.

The Doctor tilted her head up again and made her meet his eyes, brown to blue, tears to tears. "Listen to me, Rose. You absolutely cannot allow this to make you cynical about love. They win if you do that. They think, your mother because she hurts so very deeply over your father, and Borusa because he loves nothing but his own clever mind, that we're imagining this whole thing. They believe the love we share is the fancy of children, and that we'll grow out of it. They don't understand what we've done for each other, what we've promised to each other."

"But it's so hard. Even if I know it's right, it just feels so _wrong_!"

"Yes," he agreed. "It is wrong that it has to be this way. But we're not wrong. Time will prove that, regardless of what the future holds before we're together again. You've taught me that."

He sighed and sat on the bed, dressing slowly and speaking so softly. "Too many people on both our worlds live with two ideas of love. One is that fairy tale delusion that perfect love just comes to perfect people. A few trials and a white horse and they, as you say, live happily ever after. But love born from nothing but adrenaline and attraction doesn't last and perfect people don't exist."

She nodded painfully. This love of theirs had seemed so like a fairy tale at first. She made such a chavvy little Cinderella, and wasn't he just a Prince. But this Cinderella would rather ride her own horse, thanks, and this Prince would prefer his crown just let him alone.

"Then they grow up," he continued. "On your world, or mine, adulthood comes, and responsibility, and pain and trials. On my world, they learn that fairy tales are just for children and that nothing that happens in them is real. On your world, they learn that love hurts like hell some times and that the distance between two people can sometimes be harder to bridge than the distance to the stars. They learn tears and some of them even find beauty in the heart-ache. My people become cynical and yours become jaded."

"Yeah, or they quit," she acknowledged sadly. "Quit trying, quit talking, quit loving altogether."

"Right. And I won't, and you shouldn't either. Because I will love you for the rest of my life and that's liable to be a very long time. But it's not always going to be easy. There will be days I'll remember what he said long before it comes to that. There will come a time when you do grow old. I accept that, and that's what love really is."

"I know," she agreed. "Hard work and commitment, not happily ever after and a trip into the sunset." She swallowed hard. "We'll get through this, I know. But Doctor, it may be a long time for you, so please don't be alone if you can avoid it. I don't want you to be lonely or unhappy. Miss me, yeah, but live your life."

He shook his head helplessly. "Next time I see you, you can buy me some chips."

She rolled her eyes. "Next time I see you, I'm shagging you rotten."

His eyes widened. "Yeah, that's a better idea."

They just held each other for a little longer, almost contented with the knowledge that they'd made the right choice. It was painful, the hardest thing either of them had ever had to do, but it was better for both of them this way.

He slipped his ring from his finger then, and tugged the psychic paper from his pocket. The ring he put into the night stand, the paradoxical paper he left on the dresser. "I'll hide the ring here for now and come back for it before this capsule's decommissioned."

"I hope she isn't," Rose said, fiercely. "I hope she's cleverer than they think she is and manages to hide from them. Then you can steal this one when you leave and it'll be like coming home when you find me again."

"And I will find you," he promised. "No matter what."


	33. Chapter 33

**_The Disclaimer of Rassilon: Heed now the words of Rassilon the Great, for they are true. In the days before the Dark Time, Rassilon came forth and bestowed upon the Earth a gift and the people of the Earth did take the gift and gave it unto the BBC and the BBC did make a right hash of it. And Rassilon spake even unto the BBC saying 'Stop this, it is silly.' And the BBC were sore afraid and also stretching the effects budget to buy bubble wrap. And Rassilon spake again saying 'Do not go wrong and do not falter.' And verily, the BBC did hire John Nathan-Turner and falter they did and went wrong also. Then came the Time of Darkness which was filled with oppression and silence and novels not worth the paper they were printed upon. And the people of the Earth were sore afraid and donned their scarves and cried out with much lamentation. And Rassilon was moved within his hearts with pity for them. And he took the gift from the BBC and gave it even unto Fox. Fox saw the great gift and understood it not and ruined it with great ruination, though they did present a character of much beauty and dazzling couture. And Rassilon despaired that the people of the Earth should ever understand the gift he bestowed upon them in his mercy. Then Rassilon called forth his servants and gave the gift unto them saying 'behold the gift I give unto thee and make merry and make a new series that I shall not be vexed with thee. And get an effects budget this time for god's sake, lest I smite thee.' And the servants did take the gift and made much beauty and much sorrow of it as well. And Rassilon saw that it was good enough for now. And Rassilon said unto his servants 'Let the fan-fiction writers tell the story but do not give the gift to them.' And the servants knew that Rassilon was right. And they kept the gift for themselves but let the fan-fiction writers write._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**_Chapter 33: Verity_**

"I'll go with you," the Doctor announced. "Rose stays here."

Jackie let out another cry that was half joy, half misery, and all shock. She ran forward and embraced the pair of them, babbling out only god knew what, and clinging so tightly, she rather resembled a remora.

When Rose finally managed to get her mother calm enough to be at least a little sane, what Jackie told her astonished her into silence. "You're so young, the pair of you," Jackie said. "I didn't, I couldn't believe it was really love. Not 'til now."

"Why now?" the Doctor managed, baffled and bewildered and wondering to himself if Jackie was turning into a philosopher or a lunatic.

"Because until you know for sure what you'll give up for love, you don't know how strong the love is. I believe you now, both of you, because you'll sacrifice anything, even being together, because you want what's best for each other."

"Now she believes us," Rose muttered and rolled her eyes. She knew she would forgive her mother for her part in this, but she was never going to forget it, and she doubted she would ever really trust the woman as she had in the past again.

Lady Thalia approached Borusa quite diffidently, and cleared her throat as if she didn't quite know how to say what she had to say. Borusa had been in the process, it seemed, of reaching over to shake the Doctor's hand, but the woman's expression stopped him. "There is another consideration, Lord Borusa," she said softly.

"What is it?" he asked, looking completely confused. He didn't seem to handle it well when his plans got diverted from their set course. This one had already gone out of his control several times and he didn't look like he could take another shock.

She handed him the small scanner she had used on Rose earlier. The Doctor told Rose that she'd done a complete work up with that bright blue beam, temporal, medical, even psychic. They were obviously now discovering how impossible it would be to remove that Mark.

Or maybe not. Borusa looked at the scan, utterly puzzled. "Is this accurate?" he asked.

"Completely," Lady Thalia assured him, and gestured at something on the scan. "As you can see."

Borusa looked up from the scanner and his face split into a grin, a broad, happy expression that looked so utterly out of place instead of his normal cold, stony features, that Rose wondered he didn't pull a muscle. "Absolutely unbelievable," he exclaimed and shook his head. "How... oh, this is simply inconceivable."

Thalia quirked a bit of a smile, and Rose was sure _she_ pulled something. "Interesting choice of words," she commented dryly. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I..." He stopped and stared at her in consternation. "Well, I expect congratulations are in order, at least a little bit. The usual procedures should work beyond that. No reason not to do, I should think..."

"What are you nattering on about?" the Doctor demanded, crossly. "Has something happened to Rose?"

"Yes," said Borusa, and his eyes twinkled like Father Christmas. Rose was utterly taken aback. "You splendid boy, you completely impossible menace to mental stability. I can't even imagine how you managed it."

The Doctor looked at the scanner in Thalia's hands, took one quick, worried glance at the reading and then looked back at Rose, his blue eyes utterly huge and his mind whirling in dramatic circles in her head. "Horizontally," he blurted, then covered his face with his hands. "Oh, that was very, very, very wrong."

Koschei drifted over and blinked at the scanner in utter astonishment. He swore quickly and fluently. "Yeah, I don't think you could've said anything much wronger," he agreed, cheerfully. "I'll sign your death certificate."

"Thanks," the Doctor said, and it seemed like he meant it.

"I didn't realize you were gone that long," Koschei continued.

"Outer edges of the time line," the Doctor replied, mechanically. "And moved through it on a straight, linear path. Then the two jumps back."

"What the hell is going on?" Rose demanded.

The Doctor jumped as her burst of anger drifted through him. "Right. Sit down." He caught her arms and, as if she were made of porcelain all of the sudden, sat her down carefully in the throne-like, velvet covered chair.

She stood back up the instant he let her go. "What is it? Calm down, I can't even think straight with you bouncing around like that. I know you have two hearts, what's the big deal?"

Koschei, thankfully, was much more coherent and he came over to take her free hand, something of a liberty, but Rose wasn't worried if the Doctor wasn't. "What the Doctor can't tell you, because his brain's stepped out for a moment, is that there's a little, tiny, two-hearted, month-old miracle having a nap right about there." He pointed to her lower abdomen and then shrugged. "Congratulations. Ish."

"I didn't even know it was possible," Lady Thalia breathed incredulously.

Jackie stalked toward them, now, her eyes cold, her face dark and dangerous. "What did you say?" she demanded of Koschei.

Wisely, the Doctor's friend backed out of her range. The Doctor, however, was too excited. He turned to Jackie with an ecstatic, brilliant grin. "Apparently, Rose is... I... we..." He bounced happily on his toes. "It's a baby Time Lord."

Jackie drew back her hand and nearly knocked the Doctor out of his shoes. Then, she rounded on Borusa and slapped him so hard he swayed sharply from the force of the blow. "Get it out of her, right now!" Jackie shrieked. "I will not have her left alone with filthy alien spawn inside her."

Rose was too floored by the revelation, by the Doctor's stunned excitement, by his bewildered expression as he rubbed at his cheek, unable to connect the pain with Jackie's slap, to even think. Her brain was hurtling through time, tumbling loose and divorced from her body. She clung to the Doctor and he clung to her and they stood there, lost in themselves. The world going on around them was flying by their ears without any sort of comprehension on their part. _"We were careful,"_ she defended.

_"Except..."_ he reminded her.

The memory tingled through her, and she couldn't help the shiver or the smile._ "Oh. Right."_

"Jackie, you don't understand," Borusa was saying. "Time Lords are sterile."

Jackie gave him a killing look. "Yeah, you told me. That something you always say?"

Borusa blinked, looking astonished. "No, it's the absolute truth. There hasn't been a Gallifreyan womb-birth in eons. This planet did not exist the last time a Gallifreyan was conceived in utero. Some Time Lords may have been fertile, but it doesn't happen on our world all the same. I have never in my life seen something like this. Your daughter is carrying a miracle."

"I don't care, I don't. She's a baby, she ain't having one."

"He's my baby," Rose interrupted firmly. "Mine and the Doctor's, and you can't kill him, I'm not gonna let you."

Koschei, Borusa and Thalia looked at her as if she'd just spewed blasphemy. The Doctor turned her to face him and tucked her tightly against his body. "They won't. He'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen to him, shhh. You're both perfectly safe."

"Her," Thalia corrected. "It's possible to tell this early in Gallifreyan chromosomes. The child is female."

"Gallifreyan genes are completely dominant," Koschei noted. "Looks like it simply altered all the human factors. It's nearly one-hundred percent Gallifreyan."

"That would be because she's human," the Doctor replied. "Single most universally compatible species in the entire recorded history of time."

"Oh," said Koschei. "I forgot." He smirked suddenly. "This isn't something I expected to learn on this trip," he admitted.

"It isn't funny," snapped Jackie. "You get that thing out of my daughter, I don't care what kind of wonderful you think it is."

"Mum, this is your grandchild!"

"I'm not having alien grandchildren," Jackie shouted. "Or any grandchildren 'til you're twenty-five."

"I'm sorry, Jackie," the Doctor replied softly. "I'm so sorry." He shook his head. "But you have an alien grandchild."

"What do we do?" Rose asked, leaning into him, completely dependent on him now, her strength utterly spent.

"This ship has a fully equipped medical bay," Borusa said. "And Lady Thalia is a more than competent medic. The embryo will be removed and will continue to develop as any Gallifreyan might." The way he said it made it seem like it was perfectly natural and normal.

"What?" Rose demanded, nauseated at the very thought. "You're gonna put my baby in a test tube?!"

"It isn't safe for you to carry to term," the Doctor told her. He was the only person in the whole world, the whole Universe she trusted right now. "We don't know what your body will do about it; she's not human, after all, and you are. I won't have you harmed, and if I go with them, she'll have to come with me."

Their decision from earlier had become more terrible even than before, and she'd thought it wasn't possible for this situation to get any worse. Could she have the baby and, if so, would it be like him, slow to age and so clever she could never teach it anything?

"You can teach her, I'm sure, Rose. You've taught me so much, and I'm a genius, remember?" He turned to Borusa. "Let me bring Rose to Gallifrey. She's carrying a Time Lord, they surely can't doubt her, now."

Koschei spoke, this time. "It will make it worse, actually," he said, trying to sound comforting, obviously wishing he didn't have to say any of this. "Someone carrying a child on Gallifrey? You couldn't keep it a secret for more than five minutes, and... Rose, please, for your safety and his, stick to what you've decided."

"Rose Tyler," said Borusa, "I give you my word as a Time Lord. Your daughter will want for nothing."

"Except love, and affection, and her mother," Rose countered coldly.

"She'll have all the love and affection I have to offer," the Doctor promised. Silently, he added,_ "And I'll be back for her mother as soon as possible."_

Shaking, frightened, but aware that there really wasn't anything else she could possibly do - she couldn't raise a mostly Gallifreyan baby so far from her people - she finally nodded slowly. Jackie muttered some sort of prayer of thanksgiving to someone who may or may not have been listening to her.

Rose suspected that any gods there were had abandoned her and the Doctor utterly.

"Can I... can you..." She couldn't figure out how to say what she was thinking, didn't know if it even made any sense.

The Doctor reached out and touched one of the myriad threads surrounding her, and her mind was suddenly awash with a memory that had never happened.

_The breath of life inside her body had blossomed into a young girl with hair the color of a raven's wing and eyes that were dark and bright with merry brilliance. She danced like a fairy light, alone, silhouetted against an evening sky, the wind brushing her hair back from a perfect, pixie-like face. She was small and strong and precious and Rose hurt, physically hurt to reach out and touch her, knowing without knowing how, that this child would cling to her if ever they could reach each other. The Doctor, maybe a little older but still so perfectly beautiful, stepped into the picture and lifted the little girl in his strong arms, holding her up high so she could see the stars turning above them. He pointed out one tiny, twinkling light in the sky, and smiled at it. "That star is the one that your mother's world orbits. Would you like to go there, someday?"_

_The child laughed, a heart-breakingly familiar bell-like twinkle, a younger, smaller version of Rose's own happy laughter. "Yes, please, Daddy."_

_"How about you, love?" the Doctor asked. "Ready to stop by for a visit?" _

_Rose drifted into the picture then, older and more serene, somehow, more beautiful than ever in her kaleidoscopic nimbus, as seen through the Doctor's eyes. "I'll go anywhere with you two," she said, softly. "Doesn't matter."_

The not-a-memory drifted away then, leaving the little family standing together, forever, on that alien hillside, alone in the Universe and never alone, because they had each other. As the last of the shadow faded, Rose caught a glimpse of blue, standing sentinel behind them, all the home they would ever need.

_"Someday, soon," _the Doctor promised, silently.

Rose nodded, and clung to him, trying to commit the memory of her child's face to her very soul, so that when they met at last, she would know her and could hold her, and promise never to let her go again.

After an aching, heart-breaking silence, where grief and regret held her even more tightly than the Doctor, she looked up at him and rubbed angrily at the raccoon eyes caused by her ruined make-up. "Name her Verity," Rose requested.

He nodded and smiled an injured, broken smile. "Thought you said you didn't read," he accused lightly, though his voice broke to a whisper. He kissed the tracks of her tears.

She shrugged. "Sometimes," she admitted.

"It's perfect," he said.

"Why Verity?" asked Borusa, ever the interfering busy-body.

"Because it means 'Truth'," the Doctor said proudly.

Rose nodded. "And Truth is the daughter of Time."


	34. Chapter 34

**_Lord Borusa Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who, you could have him. If you think I haven't had it up to my hair with this child, if you think he hasn't made my life a constant minefield of dismay, uncertainty, and explosions, then you are obviously human. Your mind is both small enough to contemplate such trivialities as the ownership of knowledge and too small to contemplate the size of the wake of chaos young Lord Theta Sigma implies. All knowledge and all information, put plainly, should belong to Time Lords. As the most ancient civilization, we are more than competent to disseminate any facts about this reality as we see fit. Therefore, I am willing to trade the child for a good recipe for raspberry trifle, which is, of course, one of the most marvelous inventions your small species has ever discovered. Unfortunately, you will not be his official owner, but yet another fan fiction writer, like this one, with big dreams. Still, one must always seek to better one's situation, mustn't one? _**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

A/N: The Disclaimer above appears at the request and with the assistance of **scringestone**, who won a disclaimer for cleverness.

* * *

**Chapter 34: The End of the Beginning**

"She'll need to be sedated for the procedure," Borusa said in a brusque, business-like tone.

Rose cringed away from him. She didn't care, she really didn't; even if they were slicing her open with a bread-knife, that man wasn't getting any where near her with anything that might take away her will.

"You'll be fine," the Doctor said. "I'll be right here, I'll take care of you the whole time, and Verity, too."

Borusa withdrew something from a drawer beneath the console. He moved toward Rose, but she wasn't having it. She flinched and hid behind the Doctor.

Lady Thalia stepped into the room with what looked like a stretcher. Rose hadn't even noticed her leaving. She wanted to change her mind. Something wasn't right.

The Doctor took the whatever-it-was - hypo, like on Star Trek, she was informed - from Borusa and stared at it. After a moment, he nodded. "Let me," he said, and it came out as more of a command than a request. Never the less, Borusa nodded and the Doctor turned her away from the whole lot of them, moving to a corner of the room, effectively shutting her off from their sight.

"I don't trust them," she said. "What if..."

He shushed her with a gentle finger on her lips. "Trust _me_, Rose. They're not going to do anything to you or our baby. Borusa knows about the Mark, now, so he knows I won't be able to control myself if he tries to harm you. And he wouldn't hurt the baby simply because she's so incredible. He'll want to keep an eye on her for as long as I'll let him."

"Keep her away from him," Rose said. "If you can, if it's at all possible. Koschei and Zedric will help you, I know they will."

"I know, Rose." His eyes had never seemed more serious or more beautiful as he gazed down at her, now. "Thank you so much, for her. This is the most precious, fantastic thing. I..."

"You won't have to be alone. You'll have our daughter to look after and to look after you."

"I'll tell her all about you until I can bring her to you. Then we'll be a family. Have Christmas dinner with your mum, like I said."

Rose smiled wistfully. "Will she really have my eyes and your hair?"

"Oh, yes," he assured her. "Are you ready?"

"Kiss me?"

Gratitude and contrition, loneliness and relief in sight, wonder and awe and longing, joy and so much hope, he poured it all, everything he felt, everything he _was_, into his kiss. He lingered on her lips with utter devotion, and she returned the kiss with everything she had.

When at last he parted from her, he breathed her name across her lips, giving it the possessive it deserved. His eyes questioned her and she nodded. He carefully touched that hypo thing to her neck. It made a strange noise, like water flowing.

Rose felt her body grow heavy, felt her eyes close. Everything went dark and then, all at once, she was gone.

* * *

She came back to some sort of awareness, but her body was completely absent from the equation. _"Woke up, have you?"_ the Doctor's voice asked cheerfully. For once, she could hear his mental voice as if he was speaking to her.

_"What's going on?"_

_"It's the link,"_ he replied. _"Stay with me, I'm happy you're awake."_

_"Where am I?"_

_"Getting philosophical?"_ he teased. _"You're lying on a bed in the Med Bay. Your mum is in the corner, teaching Borusa a whole new encyclopedia of profanity."_ He turned his head toward this exchange and, seeing it, she laughed merrily, though how she managed it without lungs, she didn't know.

_"Is it done?"_ she asked, wondering if she felt strangely empty just because her body was gone or if there was another reason.

_"Yes,"_ he replied. _"Everything's fine. Verity's perfectly stable and so are you. Just have to sleep off the drugs, and the rest of you will wake up."_

_"This is so weird."_

_"It's a full marriage link, Rose,"_ he explained. _"You reach for me in your dreams. I probably do the same."_

Borusa apparently finished his fight with Jackie because he strode into the Doctor's view now. The Doctor moved away from him, but keeping himself between Borusa and Rose's unconscious form. He was nervously determined to protect her, but confident in their safety because Koschei was behind him, was guarding his back.

"Everything will be fine, Doctor," the old man said reassuringly. Then, he nodded firmly. There was a noise like water flowing.

The Doctor's hand went up to the back of his neck. Horrified, he rounded on Koschei, then whipped his head back toward Borusa. "What are you doing?" he demanded harshly. "What is this?"

His body was fighting the drug, fighting it in ways Rose could never have managed. She lent him her strength, meager as it was, wishing she could wake up so she could murder the pair of them. After all this, after all this time, after everything he had done for them, Koschei had betrayed them, and she couldn't even begin to imagine why.

"What is it, Koschei?" the Doctor asked, forcing the anger from his voice, trying to sound forgiving and reassuring even now. He was saving his fury for Borusa, and Rose agreed that Borusa had to shoulder the blame for most, if not all of this.

There were tears streaming from the burning gray eyes. "I... he said... if I... I had to, Doctor. I'm so sorry. I am sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"You blackmailed him," the Doctor accused Borusa, shoving the numbness in his legs away with considerable effort. He was sweating, his temperature elevating, and Rose could feel it. "With what? What can you possibly have on Koschei?"

"He said he'd tell you," Koschei whispered. "And I can't let him..."

"The drums, you mean?" the Doctor demanded. "Blast it all, Koschei, I've known for years. Four-beat rhythm, everywhere you go. It only stops when you're arguing with me." He slumped into his chair, his legs no longer able to support him. "Rassilon, Koschei, I wouldn't have done this to you, not ever. I ran away, you know that? You started hearing drums, Zedric told me, after the Schism. I ran like the bloody great coward I am."

"You're not a coward!" Koschei shouted.

"Am too," he said, and shoved again at the effects the drugs were having on his system. "If I wasn't, I'd've been brave enough to imagine you'd do this." Then, as if utterly banishing Koschei from thought or memory, he turned wearily to Borusa. "Rose hates you," he said. "I'm inclined to agree with her. What are you trying to pull here?"

"This has gone entirely too far, Thete," Borusa said, apparently discarding the Doctor's proper name along with all his own pretenses. "There's too many fraying time lines involved, too much risk to the continuum. This stops now. It began on Earth and that's where it ends."

"So you're getting rid of me, after all?" the Doctor ventured, slightly bemused at the idea, rather than angry or even offended.

"Just the memory. Your classmates have already been sedated and their memories wiped clean. Just you and Koschei remain."

"Evil," the Doctor commented. He was weakening, didn't have the energy to voice the anger. "I was right, you are a vulture."

"The future is at risk, boy. It is my duty as a Time Lord to ensure that the continuum remains stable. Her time lines don't make sense to me, Thete, and I doubt they make sense even to you. As nearly as I can tell, there could come a point in her life where absolutely everything that is possible will be within her grasp. That's an abomination and it will end here."

"If you harm her..."

"I'm not going to harm her. I'm just turning your princess back into a peasant, like she's supposed to be. You would be useless to Gallifrey and to your future with her hanging over your head. I'm acting to protect you, Thete. It's necessary and I can honestly tell you that I have never regretted anything I have ever been called upon to do for Gallifrey's sake more than I regret this moment."

The Doctor managed a small, angry noise as Koschei dropped, looking startled and confused, at his side. "I am sorry," Koschei whispered, again. "I'm so sorry."

"Koschei, I..."

"Don't," said the older Time Lord. "I did what I had to do, to keep you with me. I won't have you forgive me for that, it isn't wrong."

"It is," the Doctor insisted. "Oh, why can't you see? We're not meant, you and I. We're like noon and midnight, we'll never be what you want."

"I promise Doctor," Koschei said, dreamily. Rose saw, through the Doctor's eyes, as time traces begin to stir when he spoke. "I swear to you, I will live long enough to hear you beg me to stay with you."

They'd apparently given him a stronger dose of the drug, or he just didn't want to fight it, because his eyes closed and he slumped bonelessly to the floor beside the Doctor's chair. The Doctor stared at the other boy, and even with the drug coursing through his veins, the pledge brought horror and empathy into his mind. "We'll see," he murmured, and then ignored his betrayer in favor of the clever old man whose devious cunning was about to destroy them.

"You'll never be able to take my Mark off her," the Doctor told Borusa, as if he was reciting history.

Borusa nodded in a weary sort of defeat. "I know that, Thete. I wish you hadn't done it, but I understand your reasons. I can only hope she lives her life out in ignominy."

"And our daughter?" he wondered. "How are you going to explain her?"

"I will do as I promised," Borusa assured the Doctor quietly. "She will be safe and cared for and, if she's anything like you, which I've no doubt she will be, I'm sure she'll be adored by everyone."

"That'd be her mother," the Doctor corrected, a slight slur in his speech, now. Rose felt herself beginning to drift, and clutched tighter, pushed more of her concentration at the haze in the Doctor's mind. Maybe if they could fight this long enough, maybe... something. "Rose is adored by everyone. Most people have the good sense to hate me once they get to know me. You should."

The Doctor turned and she saw her own body lying so still on the bed, his hand still wrapped around hers, looking so right, so perfect. Tears blurred his vision, even as the drug blurred his mind. "My Rose, my precious girl," he whispered desperately.

"I'm sorry, Thete," Borusa said. "You can't keep her, you never could have done."

The Doctor turned to his tutor with a small, wicked smile curling his lips. "So you're going to use the amnesia drug on me?" he asked.

Borusa snorted. "I've never known you to mistake someone intelligent for someone stupid."

"So you're knocking me out because you can't take me in a fair fight," he mused, again as if it was unimportant, just something he wanted to say. "Clever old bastard. I'd even call you brilliant, except I'm in the room."

"I'll admit you're right about mind-bending with you," Borusa agreed, gently, as if he was trying to soothe the Doctor into sleep.

The Doctor was silent for several moments. Rose felt like sobbing, and she curled up her shaking connection against his staggered awareness, clinging to him to the very last. _"My Doctor,"_ she whispered. _ "Always _my_ Doctor."_

"My Rose," he answered aloud. He looked up at Borusa again, blinking, as if startled to see him there. He summoned up the last of his energy and looked his tutor straight in the eye, to speak to him in formal tones that rang with doom and conviction. "I promise you, Lord Borusa, someday, you will manipulate me too far or one time too often. And I promise you, I devoutly assure you, that I will personally hand you over to your own trap. You remember that, even if I forget it, because it is my solemn vow to you for what you've done. I give you my oath as a Prydonian and as a Time Lord."

Then his eyes drifted closed. His presence with Rose was losing consciousness, but still he held her hand, and still she clung to him with every drop of energy she had. They were losing, they were not going to make it, her husband was falling away from her with every breath they took.

_"My Rose,"_ he told her silently. He wanted it to be the very last thing he remembered. _"My Rose, my wife."_

_"My Doctor,"_ she whispered.

And then, someone turned off reality.


	35. Requiem

**TARDIS Disclaimer: I am the Doctor's shining shadow, his blue forever friend. I was there when this began, will be there when it ends. I keep my secrets deep within and sing to light the stars. My soul contains forever and I change it from afar. So grace our world with gifted pen but never once forget, I'm always with the Doctor and he hasn't lost me yet. Change the words and change the world and dance around with prose, but when she looked into my heart, then I looked into Rose. The story's a long history, it's spun across all time: the Doctor and his secrets and his shining love are mine.**

**_As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review._**

* * *

**Requiem: Aftermath of Apocalypse**

Jackie Tyler watched with enormous trepidation as Borusa and that skinny, snooty friend of his lifted the two boys onto beds on either side of Rose. Even in sleep, the Doctor's hand stretched toward her daughter's and Jackie experienced yet another moment of self-doubt. She knew she should be relieved. No telling what those two had got up to, but if everything that had happened in this room was right, they'd definitely got up to mischief. She should be feeling an enormous sense of gratitude and happiness that this alien boy had not managed to snatch her only child away from her.

So why did the sight of her daughter's red and tear-streaked face twist inside her like a knife in her guts? Why did the Doctor's expression of utter devastation make her wish to God she'd hid them while she had the chance? Why was her heart breaking, if her daughter would never remember the heart-break these days should bring her?

The proud-faced cow with Borusa turned to look at him with an expression of admiration and wonder, the only person aware of this situation who seemed to feel absolutely no shame. Even Borusa, whose machinations had brought them all to this point, seemed rattled and defeated. He'd destroyed something that wasn't meant to be, but it brought him nothing but remorse and pain.

Jackie was just a little bit glad of that.

"Koschei can be administered the amnesia drug," Borusa told his guiltless accomplice. "The Doctor... Thete, I will have to see to personally."

"This is a secret it will be difficult to bear, my Lord Borusa," simpered the little woman. Jackie decided that she hated her more than any of them.

Borusa nodded, and left her side, let her bend over Koschei's still body to administer whatever drug she was supposed to give him. That boy, what he had done, what he had been forced to do...

She saw the Time Lord pick up something from the table, watched him return to his friend's side. "The burden will be difficult," he said. "And I think I must bear it myself."

As casually as that, he drugged her and then dragged her limp body across the Medical room. "Could you give me a hand here?" he asked.

Jackie snorted and went over to help him hoist the woman up onto a free bed. "You're a right bastard when it suits you, aren't you?" she asked as they dropped the unconscious woman onto the bed. Jackie showed neither ceremony nor sympathy, but neither did Borusa.

"I think I'll have to add it to my name, so many people have called me one," he agreed. He then turned and gestured her out of the room. "Can we get a cup of tea?" he asked.

"You sure every one in there will sleep?"

"Rose will sleep as long as the Doc... Thete does, at least until I sever that connection. I gave him a strong enough dose to keep him out for a week."

"So you say," Jackie replied caustically. "You'll be lucky if he doesn't turn up to knock you down in ten minutes."

Borusa smiled at her warmly and led her into a small kitchen. "It will keep even him out for three days. He used up everything he had to tell me what he's going to do to me."

Jackie reached over and turned the electric kettle on. This space ship had to be the strangest thing she had ever seen in her life, and not just because it was from outer space or even because it was bigger on the inside. It had equipment even science fiction never dreamed of, and then it also had cheap tin pots she wouldn't have allowed in her kitchen on the Council Estates.

Borusa scared up some tea from a cupboard. Apparently, there was a vast selection available, and Borusa muttered something about the pilot being a lunatic. Jackie reached up and pulled down two mugs. One had a bright blue square on it and read "The Angels have the Blue Box". The other, she almost dropped. Uncommonly beautiful for a simple mug, it was softly shining in the light and delicately painted with a large red rose. Nervously, she poured the water and Borusa dropped two tea balls into the mugs.

"Well?" Jackie ventured when the tea had finally steeped and they took seats.

"I will have to extract him from your daughter's mind." He shook his head ruefully and gulped at his tea, making a strange face, as if he'd said he would have to uproot a mountain or move the moon. "He's bound them up so thoroughly, even removing his memories, even removing hers, will be impossible without doing so."

"Is she going to be okay?"

Borusa sighed. "There may be some behavioral implications of severing such a link. I've no idea. The loss of the kind of intimacy they've shared... either one of them may suffer some changes, Jackie, it can't be helped. She may become infatuated with the first person to offer her some shadow of such. He may do the same. There's no way to know, and I can't watch her without muddling time even further than it already is around her. She'll be safe, with you, where you want her to be. It will have to do." Then he fell to silence, sipping at his tea.

"We're horrible," Jackie ventured after awhile.

"I'm horrible. You are a mother doing what you think best for your child."

"I don't know how I'm gonna live with myself. I didn't want her to run off with an alien, but God, it feels like I'm letting her be murdered. She loves him so much, even though she's so young. If she knew, she'd never forgive me, and I wouldn't want her to." She hated herself, just a little bit, for the lengths fear had driven her to. "Her father would never have done this. Pete could be such an idiot, but he believed in love, even when I didn't."

"I have never had cause to believe in it, before," Borusa admitted. "But then, I've never seen anything like this, before. His very nature should have driven her away. Her simple human mind should have repelled him. It is utterly impossible, and yet it exists, and I am going to destroy it."

She frowned into her mug and wished for something stronger. To her surprise, and possibly to Borusa's as well, a large golden bottle appeared next to her hand. "Thought you said it was a time machine, not magic," she accused.

"Apparently, it has acquired an affinity for you," he replied thoughtfully. "Or possibly your DNA," he added, apparently as it occurred to him. "Yes, that's more likely. There is a Time child on board with a derivative structure."

"Don't like that at all," Jackie added and poured a large measure of whatever was in the golden bottle into her mug with the rest of her tea. It was strong and sweet, but blended nicely.

"I am sorry. Verity, even Rassilon himself could never have predicted. It has to do with the boy's nature, though, so it isn't subject to prediction. He is a child of the most elemental sort of chaos, and the unexpected is the only thing you can guarantee about him."

"Are you... you're not going to destroy the baby, are you? I... I don't think that's fair."

"I thought you didn't want to think about your alien grandchild."

"She's my grandchild, though," Jackie countered, sadly. "Yeah, so my first reaction was stupid, but I'd've got used to her by the time she got here. Too many girls Rose's age, and even a lot of grown women, seem to think having a baby is all life's about, you know. And it's hard to raise a child, alone or with someone. They never realize until it's too late. I didn't want that for her, that's all." Jackie sighed and drank deep from the mug. "You are going to keep your word about her, aren't you?"

He smiled. "I'd never dream of doing otherwise. She'll even keep her name, as it's the only thing of her biological parents she'll ever have."

"It's so funny to think my daughter has a little girl who'll grow up on another world. Who will outlive us both by ages."

"Then think of the legacy you will leave behind in her. You humans are always worried about what you pass on to the future. Your daughter has gifted us Verity and that may yet become a great gift indeed. If she's anything like her father, though, I don't envy her teachers in the slightest." Borusa shook his head and sipped morosely at his tea. "Tell me, has your daughter always been so passionate about the things that don't really concern her?"

"Rose is forever bringing home strays, if that's what you mean, has done all her life. She just loves people and things, and I s'pose even aliens from outer space was a given." Jackie brushed at her face and was surprised to discover tears there on her cheeks. She let her head drop into her hands. "I just wish it didn't have to be like this. Will she remember anything? Ever?"

"Probably not."

"I... can you let her remember that she had love? Just a little bit? It's important to us humans. I'd like her to know that her first love was worth it."

Borusa considered her closely, his dark, hollow eyes peering deeply into her own. "I can try," he offered at last. "But I make you no promises about this, Jackie. It will be difficult enough."

"And no one will ever even know that this happened, except you and me?"

"Just me," he corrected. "I can't allow you to suffer this sort of knowledge. You've been very kind, Jackie."

"Kind of stupid," she replied. She took a long swig of her new, strange drink, then shrugged. "Pity. You were a decent shag."

His face broke into a charmed smile and his eyes twinkled at her with amusement. "You are simply delightful, woman. I can easily see what Thete sees in your daughter, because of what I see in you. I could love you, just a little, were it not so wrong. Yet, I should apologize for the false pretenses. You are attractive, and I was curious."

"I've had worse reasons," Jackie replied with another shrug. "Don't apologize to me. But you'll spend your life making all this up to the Doctor."

"Probably," Borusa admitted. His face looked resigned. "Otherwise, he'll keep his promise."

"Can't you wipe out your own memories?"

"Yes, but I won't. Someone should remain aware of this, in case there are unforeseen repercussions. It will be my burden to bear alone and my silence alone to keep."

Jackie considered him closely. "You deserve it," she told him coldly.

"Yes, I know," he admitted sadly. "One should always remember what one has destroyed."

"Promise me this," she requested intently, letting her eyes bore into his, demanding, compelling. "You can't promise anything else, but you can promise me one thing, and I'll have it or you'll never get rid of me."

He tilted his head to consider her. "What is it?" he asked, unwilling to promise without knowing what she wanted.

"Never let them remember. For as long as you live, make sure the memory stays gone."

He thought about it. "On one condition. If it will save his life, I will return the memories. Otherwise, they die with me."

She thought about it, and finished her drink. "Yes, that's fair. Because they're never gonna see each other again, and he's been hurt enough." She pushed away from the table and walked back toward the Med Lab, not entirely sure what she was thinking, really.

She moved over to the Doctor's side and pushed his dark curls out of his face. He really was an astonishingly beautiful boy, even if he did look so very like a human child lying there. Even now, his face looked solemn and injured. She worried, really worried, that she had done something very, very wrong this time.

Borusa came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She turned to him suddenly, as she realized what, exactly, was wrong with this whole scenario. "Who is he?"

"An orphaned child. Someone has to look after him."

"That's not no ordinary orphan, no matter what you let him think," Jackie replied hotly. "So tell me, who is he? I'll forget all about him, we both will, and that's not half wrong. I'm letting you do this to my daughter and I'm helping you break two kids' hearts. So you owe me that much, dammit. You tell me what my daughter took to bed with her and lost her heart to, and you'd best tell me now!"

"Jackie, it isn't important."

"It is! If he was just some half-mad little kid, some well-spoilt little orphaned genius, you'd've let him take her off, or left him with her. What you told him, what you said, it makes no sense. You people time travel, you can track him down any time. It wouldn't have mattered one damn bit to you. But you don't treat him like even a gifted kid. You act like he's a bomb about to go off, or a storm about to erupt in your living room."

"A storm," Borusa mused thoughtfully. "Yes, that's very appropriate."

She glowered at him balefully and he flinched. He backed away from her, apparently remembering how very hard she could slap. She rolled her eyes. "Siddown, you daft old coward, and tell me."

Borusa nodded, his eyes haunted, and pulled up a chair between the young couple. When he spoke, it was in the tone of a man who'd been keeping difficult secrets for a very long time. "He was brought to me by a friend of mine, who has secluded himself in the Mountain of Solitude, above the Citadel. The boy was approximately six years old, completely healthy, and utterly inexplicable. I ran every possible test to determine his origin and I failed to find any answers. My research assistant at the time, a Postulant called Flavia, suggested, and you must understand that she was joking, that he might be a certain child mentioned in our oldest legends."

Jackie realized now that Borusa wasn't actually talking to her. He was telling the story, yes, but it was with the air of one confessing a myriad of sins to something that would neither comprehend nor remember what he said. Well, that was her, in this instance, anyway, and it was her own fault really. Her impulsive demand had turned her into a Wailing Wall for an alien.

"I chose, in a moment of pique, to give her suggestion serious consideration. I say pique because it seemed to me that circumstances were consciously acting against me in my search for the boy's identity. After I gave it some thought, I began tracking his history as if he were this child, and the answers that began to surface were terrible indeed. I found things... dark things, dangerous things. Bits of Gallifreyan history that have been lost, deliberately. The Harp of Rassilon, the Great Key, the Black Scrolls."

He looked up at her, but he wasn't really seeing her at all. His face was blank with shadows and horror and she wondered that, whatever he had found, it hadn't driven him completely raving mad. It might yet, never could tell.

"That last... awful. They contain such knowledge, such information as _should_ be lost. And, damn me for a fool, but I don't dare destroy them, because what is contained in them may become precious or necessary some day. The Key is very nearly as bad. It is the operational device of the rest of the Legacy. Any single item in the Legacy can kill worlds or heal them, and the Key makes it possible. I presented the vile thing to the President, knowing full well that to do so would mean both its purpose and its meaning would be lost. In fact, given a few generations, the Key itself will vanish again, and that can only be a relief."

Jackie didn't understand any of that, but she found she didn't want to know. "Did you ever find his parents?" she ventured, because she was sure he'd get lost in discussing artifacts and she'd miss the point.

"Have you ever wondered at the children of great star-crossed love affairs? Children born from partnerships that are all fire and passion, children who are conceived in tempests, whose parents seem both insane and insanely in love? Even our stories tell of such couples. Have you ever wondered that the children who grow to become legends tend to have back stories such as these?"

She shrugged, because she hadn't thought about it. She was more interested in Coronation Street than Romeo and Juliet, anyway, and they'd never had kids.

"His parents are such two. He is born of great, doomed passion, and as a result, his inheritance is the stuff of legends."

"So this makes him special, does it?" she wondered, as that began to sink in.

"You have the concept of sacred persons, do you not?"

"Sacred... oh, you mean like vicars and nuns and priests, or do you mean like angels?"

"A bit of both," Borusa said with a shrug. "Special beings, set aside. Your people, you humans, are all so emotional, wild and energetic and full of life and death. Your sacred persons, therefore, are quiet and contemplative and given to order and gentle calm. You cling to anger and sensuality and you expect those among you who are holy to eschew these things."

"Yeah, all right," she agreed.

"My people are the opposite. We are quiet and orderly, we live lives of learning and study, we disregard our emotions, we eschew experiences of the flesh for experiences of the mind."

She shot him a look at that.

"Mostly," he conceded. "But if we are these things, then among us, persons who are holy, which means so unique as to be precious, would again be the opposite. Given completely unto joy, in love with life and with passion." He reached over then, and stroked a lock of Rose's hair away from her face. "And maybe even an ordinary blonde girl from another planet."

"But..." Jackie jumped up from her chair and glowered at him. "I hardly think that shagging my daughter makes him anything but a randy teenager."

Borusa's face looked fond and distant at once, as if he despaired of her understanding him, ever, which, she supposed, was very likely. "It's loving her, being able to love her, giving so much of himself to her. More, it is her loving him in return. You must understand, this emotion is much more than it seems on the surface. It has strength that can transcend even the power of space and time. His ability to love and to find joy, when most of his kind are emotionally absent at best, is something that sets him apart from the rest of us. He can use that ability to find love and find those who will have faith in him to make him very strong indeed. Rose's love for him and faith in him have driven him to incredible acts already, things that should be impossible for him, or at least too difficult for any of his classmates, separately or collectively, to engineer. With a Time Lord's training and ability, this one emotion can make him greater than any of our kind have ever been."

She felt the blood drain from her face as all this started to connect up in her head. "So, if him being loved gives him power, and we've just taken his first love away from him..."

"Then I have either prepared the way for him to become like a god in his own right," he said, and Jackie felt like she was watching a man read out his own death sentence, "or I have nailed a young Messiah to a cross of my own devising."

The air was getting stagnant and strange and her hands were trembling as her small human mind tried to come to terms with her part in this. Borusa reached for her hand then, and she accepted it, and he dropped a small white tablet into it. He helped her to her feet then, and led her to another bed. She sat down, her head swimming, thanking anybody who might be listening for the pill and the forgetfulness it would bring. "I... I hope you never live to find out," she said.

He handed her a glass of water and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Take it," he said.

She did as he bade her, too afraid of what she had learned to do anything else. She didn't want to know this, had never wanted to know.

As her eyes drifted closed, she heard the Time Lord speak, one last time, a benediction. "May whatever gods there are have mercy."


	36. Repercussions

**_montypython203 Disclaimer: You might be the future owner of Doctor Who! Do you have more dreams than you can count about it? Do you try, anyway, diligently writing every one of them down, attempting to document their full scope and breathtaking wonder? Do you work Doctor Who into every conversation you have? Do you own a forty-foot long scarf? Have you ever been referred to as 'Doctor' by a close friend or family member? Do you have the theme tune on your MP3, cell phone, and/or computer's player? Have you ever asked yourself, in an ordinary situation, 'What would the Doctor do?'. Did you make your decision based on this? When you learn the air date of the next Doctor Who episode, do you run around screaming and waving your arms like the kid in Home Alone? Can you name all the Doctors actors, but have trouble remembering the middle name of a sibling or close friend? Do you stroke your personal computer? Have you ever, even once, found yourself in a mental dilemma when trying to decide whether you'd prefer Eccelston, Tennant, or Borrowman on your desert island (or Piper, Myles, Tate, or Aygema)? If more than two of these things are true, you may be the future owner of Doctor Who. Or sectioned. But not yet._**

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

* * *

**A/Ns**: _The above disclaimer appears per the assistance of montypython203, who was brilliant some time back (and of course remains brilliant)._

The concepts in this chapter would not be possible without the genius of **Terrance Dicks,** who gave us the only good novel, which is **"****The Eight Doctors****",** and many wonderful episodes besides. Miss you MUCH, sir. Also, shout outs to **the late William Hartnell**, **Billie Piper**, **Chris Eccelston**, **Carole Anne Ford, ****Russell T. Davies** (though I will chase you with a pitchfork if you do not FIX that),** Steven Moffett **(You can hire me. I'll write the regulars, you can write the OCs; it isn't a bad arrangement.), **David Tennant**, and, of course, **John Barrowman**. Also shout outs to all of you, with much gratitude for your attention to a mad woman's rambles.

Yes, that does mean this is the end. I cannot at this time _promise _a sequel. However, there is one in the works. The plot, unfortunately, is even harder to weave, this time - rather like trying to do Chinese silk on a bead loom. I'll do everything in my power, but the future of this line of possibility depends largely on the outcome of "Journey's End." Final reviews will be replied to, also, so don't forget to let me know what you thought, even if you hovered in the background expecting me to turn out to be an idiot.

If you want to know how it goes in the meantime, and haven't checked them out, the paired stories "How He Loved Her" and "When You're Older" are both simultaneously ancestors and descendants of this work.

_And now, on with the end..._

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**Repercussions: A Window to Tomorrow**

The old man owed him a favor, but it was almost a month before Jack saw him again. One glance at the old Time Lord told Jack that far more than a month had passed outside of the causal nexus. "You've changed," Jack said quietly.

The old man smiled, his eyes kind now, and so gentle. "And yet you still recognize me." He took Jack's hand in his, somehow more an embrace in that gesture than a simple handshake. "Yes, I've changed. Or I've been changed, really."

Jack found, to his surprise, that he both liked and trusted the old man, now, neither of which he had done before. He offered him a seat and a brandy, both of which the old man accepted, still with that quiet smile on his now serene face. "What happened?"

"Time and peace and a promise kept," the man replied. He had soft blue eyes, now, instead of hard dark ones. "Several people made promises during this nexus, and it is time I kept this one."

"So you can fix me?" Jack asked, knowing that he must sound completely desperate to the man sitting across his desk from him.

The old man shook his head. "I have learned so much, dear boy. So very much. Most things have been greatly to my cost and to my shame, but what I have learned of you... you are a special case, child, and like all special cases, you must be handled with very great care."

"I'm tired," Jack pleaded. "It's too much. Human beings are not meant to live... like this." He couldn't say "forever" - surely it wouldn't really be forever, would it?

"You are exactly correct, there," the old man told him, his smile fading and his face unaccountably wise. "The only beings who are suited to and survive immortality are those who are inherently designed for it. Any others that this role may fall to go mad within the first lifetime. Inevitably, they seek out and find a way to destroy themselves. But you're not like them, are you? Is that what you wish?"

"I..." Jack paused. It wasn't suicide he was asking for, had never been. He was just tired, so very tired, of getting up and walking away from every tragic death and senseless murder circumstance could devise for him. "I just want to know that it will end, that I won't have to go on and on, watching every thing and every one I love die."

The old man hung his head. "I am sorry," he said. "I can not guarantee you that. It will end, some day, I promise you, but after that... it is a curse, and you will have to bear it." Jack's guest looked up at him and his eyes were deep and strange. "Everything has its time, even this."

Jack nodded, feeling some how both hopeful and defeated. "Can you teach me how to live with it, then?"

"You already know," the old man said with another of his small and wistful smiles. "You are and always will be rare, to still feel and still search, even when eternity itself won't give you up."

"It's nice to know I'm so loved," Jack said sarcastically.

"Oh, you are. In ways you cannot begin to imagine, not yet. I cannot change that and would not even if I could. But I can teach you a technique... you can rest, for any period of time, let ages pass over you, your mind well away from your body while your body remains in stasis."

"I assume you'd need equipment for that," Jack said dubiously.

The old man handed him a small data chip for his wrist computer. "Everything you need is there. Your mind can handle the technique and your body... your body has it by virtue of your inheritance."

Jack accepted it willingly. Something like that might come in handy some day. He studied the chip, wondering if this was truly a fair exchange for all that had been done here, ages ago by his guest's reckoning, in the past month by Jack's. In the end, he decided it would have to be. He wasn't in this for payment any way.

"Has everything calmed down in the area?" the old man asked after Jack looked up at last.

"It's a causal nexus, and apparently we're approaching the end of it." Jack shrugged. "I haven't seen an out of place time traveler in at least two days." Jack shivered, now, as he thought about what the past month had been like. "I never want to see this kind of thing again."

"You will, though." The old man smiled again and his expression, while canny, seemed quite harmless this time. "After all, I've seen at least three manifestations of you particularly in this time frame."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Great. I should've looked myself up. Could have had a threesome with me."

The old man snorted with amusement and shook his head. "As I believe I've told you before, you will never amount to anything in this galaxy while you retain this propensity for vulgar facetiousness."

Jack laughed out loud, even though the old man had never told him anything of the kind. He was certain he would have remembered that. "You never did explain this thing to me. Now that I'm not in the middle of it, can you?"

"To an extent. The version of yourself involved in closing the paradox had to be a version of you from prior to the event that made you the way you are now. If you had approached the anomaly..."

"Which I didn't, since you asked so nicely," Jack interrupted, wondering if he was teasing or complaining about the thunderous, rude orders this man's much younger self had delivered with regards to that.

The old man shook his head, sheepishly. "I've been a fool before, you know, but rarely more so than during the time I spent here. But you would have been harmed irreparably in your current state by contact with the anomaly. It made you sick when you first saw it, shortly after it formed, did it not?"

"I felt like it was looking back at me," Jack confessed, a feeling of revulsion washing over him just remembering the disgusting thing.

"That is an apt description. Later, much later, I expect, you will be able to approach it as long as you contain your emotions. Here, it would have ripped you apart to involve yourself. Only the younger you, the one untouched by the breath of immortality, could approach it. The girl's circumstance was different. She had to have no trace of time travel radiation in her system."

"I've run temporal traces on her before - she's absolutely steeped in Time, even now, has been since as far back as I've seen her." Jack wasn't about to confess that the first time he'd seen Rose Tyler, she'd been alive less than twenty-four hours.

"Those are possibilities. Not actualities. She..." The old man sighed, heavily. "Rose Tyler is unique. Later, perhaps, you will understand how all this came about. It is best to just say that she, too, is part of the paradox, and leave it at that."

Jack wanted to argue, but how could he, with a Time Lord, about time? After a few moments, he stilled. "What happened to your student?"

"He grew up," the old man said, his eyes growing distant and somewhat misty. "His brother took him into his home and he found a family for himself. He had children and he loved them all more than his own life. Only one reached adulthood before his House was massacred, and she was the one he did not know. He lost his friends, he lost his place in our society. He lost his grandchild. So many times, he almost lost his way."

The Time Lord looked so very hurt for that blue-eyed boy's fate. Jack began to wonder if the boy had died, as well, but that didn't seem to be the case. Instead those haunted eyes pierced him with their fire, considering Jack with such a deep, eerie expression that Jack felt something like terror try to climb his spine. "Someday, he may lose himself."

Then the man's shoulders went back and his head took on a proud tilt reminiscent of his best expressions from the last time Jack saw him. "He never lost faith, though, and he regained the ability to love with inconceivable abundance. He became so much more than anyone could have ever expected. He will have a long road ahead of him, but he will endure it because that is what he was born to do. I have every confidence in him."

"Did he ever remember her?" Jack wondered.

"In his way," the old man replied, "I don't think he ever forgot her. I don't think he ever really will. He remembers nothing, and yet everything is there, deeper inside his mind than even he can ever go. But a love like that... there is nothing that can keep it lost forever, and I have come to realize that she is a special creature, infinitely worthy of such a thing."

Jack knew that. Everyone loved her, literally every one. He wondered though and, for the first time, he dared to consider a possibility that had never occurred to him before. "You never told me his name," Jack mentioned.

"At the time, he was called Theta Sigma." The name sounded so familiar to Jack, but he couldn't place it before the old man moved on and nearly wiped it from his mind. "Tomorrow, he will be called General."

Jack breathed in a harsh breath as he realized what exactly that meant. "The Time War. It's starting." He paused and thought about it, concentrated, looking around the Torchwood Hub and thinking carefully about the life he had built here. "Take me with you," he requested. "I can help you in ways no one else possibly can."

The old man considered him carefully and then he shook his head. "I wish I could. You would be an incalculable asset. However, it is not possible, for reasons that will become clear to you later. I do thank you for your offer. It is a very brave thing."

"There's nothing brave about it," Jack said. "I'm a coward at heart, I'm sure. No, it's just that Dalek guns don't work on me any more than anything else does."

The old man abruptly changed the subject. "Tell me, how is the amnesia drug working out?"

Jack smiled at this, genuinely pleased. "I prefer it greatly, thank you. A man is the sum of his memories, you know, and I never wanted to go around wiping them out. It happened to me once, and that was more than enough. We call your stuff ret-con and it works just like you said. We can replace the memories they shouldn't have with memories they're better off with. To keep them happy. To keep them safe."

"I'm pleased to hear it," the old man said, and stood. Jack stood as well, and gave him a careful salute.

The old man returned the salute. Then, he stopped and looked down carefully at Jack's desk. "You will find, young man, that the time you need will always be in the last place you look. And sometimes, that's right under your nose."

Jack didn't even try to make sense of that. "You be careful," he instructed.

"I'm irrelevant," the old man replied. "You be strong, my boy. You've quite a past to live up to, and a future and potential as well. I dare not tell you all that you can become, but I will say this. The closure of the paradox required the girl and the boy and the future and you. When the time comes again, and it will, do not forget that you exist because the universe itself insists you must, in defiance of its own laws. Walk through it, this time, and I think all you have ever hoped for will be waiting here for you when you step clear of it."

Jack didn't know what to make of any of that, but he nodded all the same and filed it into the enormous vaults of his immortal memory, never to be forgotten. "Good luck, sir," he said softly.

"Thank you," said the man, politely. "And to us all."

He stepped away from Jack's office and was gone. The nexus was over at last, the distortions that allowed impossible time zones to co-exist had finally dissipated. Jack breathed a sigh of relief and took his recording of their conversation to the vault. He sealed it in using his "rhea silva" password. He enjoyed the irony of that usage - a legendary mother of children raised by a wolf who was burnt at the stake for bearing them. Since his life was changed by the results of the bad wolf references and then again by Torchwood, it seemed singularly appropriate.

He sat down at his desk and looked up the words "Theta Sigma". Greek letters, they rendered themselves to a variety of meanings, but Jack couldn't help the horror that struck him as he realized one of the common usages of Theta. It meant "Thanatos", and Thanatos was Death.

Jack had been feeling guilty for not revealing the outcome of the War to the old man. Now, he found himself shaken by an alternative possibility. It seemed so unlikely, but maybe, just maybe, the Time Lords had always known they were doomed.

* * *

Some time later, completely by chance, Jack happened to find an unusual document in the Cardiff public record, a marriage certificate for Rose Marion Tyler and Theta Sigma. He looked up the two witnesses, an older couple from a country estate a couple hours north of London. Their names were familiar, Jack thought, but he wasn't sure exactly how. Still, they had to forget this, and he would have to handle it.

He snuck into their garden and watched them for a few moments when, to his horror, he saw the TARDIS materialize herself about six yards away from where the old couple was having tea. They blinked at it in nothing that resembled the shock Jack had expected. In fact, until the TARDIS doors flew open and released an enormous cloud of billowing black smoke, Jack was beginning to wonder if they had even noticed her at all.

A body followed the smoke, the battered, near dead form of a man Jack had never seen before. He tumbled from the door way and hit the grass with force enough to shatter his nose, not that it would have done any more damage than anything else that had apparently already happened to him. The large man was on his feet at once, moving with an accustomed ease that belied his apparent age. Jack started to move toward them - time lines, such as they were, be damned - when there was a sudden, all encompassing bright light.

"Here we go again," the man muttered to his wife.

Jack's jaw swung freely in the breeze. Then, the man reached the body and turned it over. The face was clean now and scarless, unmistakable even at this distance. Jack found himself looking at the familiar features, cropped hair, and large ears of the Doctor as Jack had known him.

It was beginning.

The man and his wife seemed to think nothing of it, so Jack decided that anything they knew they were welcome to know. He snuck back out of the garden before the urge to help became too much.

He kept one official copy of the document in the vault in case it became important again later. Then, he used his Torchwood authority to have the file sealed. Rose Tyler would go about her normal life and some day, when the time felt right, Jack could ask them about it.

A few years later, he found Rose's name on the list from Canary Wharf. The whole month suddenly became too painful to recall, and he sealed it away from his active memory, using the same technique that locked away his distant past.

Someday, he would learn to hate her almost as much as he loved her, and someday after that, he would see her again, beloved and beautiful and forgiven. Until that time, Rose Tyler became a sacred mystery, hidden in the depths of Jack's ageless green eyes, and in the star flecked sorrow of the Doctor's ancient soul.


End file.
